The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity

by Edwin O. Reischauer

With the two-thousand-year history of the Japanese experience as his foundation, Edwin O. Reischauer brings us an incomparable description of Japan today in all its complexity and uniqueness, both material and spiritual. His description and analysis present us with the paradox that is present-day Japan: thoroughly international, depending for its livelihood almost entirely on foreign trade, its products coveted everywhere—yet not entirely liked or trusted, still feared for its past military adventurism and for its current economic aggressiveness.

Reischauer begins with the rich heritage of the island nation, identifying incidents and trends that have significantly affected Japan's modern development. Much of the geographic and historical material on Japan's earlier years is drawn from his renowned study The Japanese, but the present book deepens and broadens that earlier interpretation: our knowledge of Japan has increased enormously in the intervening decade and our attitudes have become more ambivalent, while Japan too has changed, often not so subtly.

Moving to contemporary Japanese society, Reischauer explores both the constants in Japanese life and the aspects that are rapidly changing. In the section on government and politics he gives pithy descriptions of the formal workings of the various organs of government and the decision-making process, as well as the most contentious issues in Japanese life-pollution, nuclear power, organized labor-and the elusive matter of political style.

In what will become classic statements on business management and organization, Reischauer sketches the early background of trade and commerce in Japan, contrasts the struggling prewar economy with today's assertive manufacturing, and brilliantly characterizes the remarkable postwar economic miracle of Japanese heavy industry, consumer product development, and money management. In a final section, "Japan and the World' he attempts to explain to skeptical Westerners that country's growing and painful dilemma between neutrality and alignment, between trade imbalance and "fair" practices, and the ever-vexing issue of that embodiment of Japanese specialness, a unique and difficult language that affects personal and national behavior.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, History, Cultural, Politics, Japanese Literature

440 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and culture of Japan and East Asia. Together with George M. McCune, a scholar of Korea, in 1939 he developed the McCune–Reischauer romanization of the Korean language.

Reischauer became involved in helping create US policy toward East Asia during and after World War II. President John F. Kennedy appointed Reischauer as the United States Ambassador to Japan, where he served from 1961 to 1966. Reischauer founded the Japan Institute at Harvard University in 1973 and was its founding director. It was later named in honor of him.

Reviews

[hannaH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really handy for any Japanese Studies major- I frequently find myself dipping into this book for facts which I can jump off and expand on in my essays. Highly recommended.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half was very interesting, covering Japanese history and culture. I bogged down in the later sections on post-WWII politics, though, and ended up skimming some sections.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This overview of Japan from early history to the 1990s shows us a people effective at adoption of ideas from China etc. and independent development. They independently developed feudalism:

By the twelfth century Japan was on the threshold of an even greater departure from East Asian norms. This was the development of a feudal system, which over the next seven centuries was to go through phases that had many striking parallels to the feudal experience of Western Europe between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. These similarities to Europe cannot be laid to mutual influences, since there was no contact between the two. The parallels are more likely to have been the result of similarities in the social and cultural ingredients that be-came mixed together in these two areas-namely, tribal societies and relatively advanced political and economic systems. In the West, tribal German groups fell heir to the wreckage of the administration and land system of the Roman Empire. In Japan, the tribal islanders adopted the political institutions and land system of the Chinese Empire. In both cases, these two elements worked on each other over a long period in relative isolation, and out of the amalgam emerged a complex political system based on bonds of personal loyalty in a military aristocracy and the fusion of public authority and personal property rights to land.

As the authority and power of the central government declined in Japan, various groups of local leaders in the provinces banded together for mutual protection. These groups were made up of the officers of the old provincial administrations and the local managers or owners of estates. At first such groups consisted of relatives or neighbors, centered frequently around some charismatic figure who inspired loyalty. Because of the strong Japanese sense of hereditary authority, nothing was more prestigious than imperial descent. Thus, many of the groups came to be led by cadet branches of the imperial family that had received the family names Taira or Minamoto and had moved out to the provinces to make their fortunes as the representatives of central authority...

Inception through WWII covers like the first 110 pages and then the next few hundred pages while covering, basically, only a half century feel like a compact, rushed exploration of the contradictions and idiosyncrasies of a complex and interesting culture:
* Rigid roles but tolerant of drunks
* Excessively polite but pushing and shoving on crowded commuter trains
* Linguistic complexity due to the rare agglutination mode.

A lot of the modern history part tells of the rise and decline of the Liberal Democratic Party.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Japanese Today offers a thorough history and analysis of Japan up through the early 1990’s focusing on a holistic approach to covering its subject. The authors do an excellent job of giving a survey of culture, economics, history and psychology to paint a picture of how Japan got to where it is today. The chapters are broken up into themes and for a broad survey the book does a great job of not jumping around. If you are just starting out learning about Japan this is a great book to start without an overwhelming amount of detail but enough to give the reader a good sense of the country and its place in world affairs.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, while considered a classic study of Japan, is indeed quite dated. It is not all that quaint to read references to Europe or "the west" as the "Occident". Some of the assertions about Japan such as its vaunted bureaucracy and lack of corruption are clearly from another time entirely. This criticism aside, it is fascinating to read these views on Japan 20+ years after the update in the last chapter of this book was completed in 1994. A lot has changed but much of the core of the book covering history up to the 1980's is still relevant.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent survey of Japanese history and culture. I read it for a class in Japanese Culture through film, but I found myself reading ahead. Its easy to read, engaging and the author makes it easy to see the connections between the people, their history, their land and how we know them to be today. Great book, recommended to anyone with an interest in Japan or Japanese culture.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading Gordon's book, this one felt superficial. However still decent survey on Japanese culture, history, and politics. It gave more insight into the actual culture than Gordon's work and significantly more accessible in terms of writing style. While it filled in the blanks for me, it treated most of the topics superficially --- almost like a traveller's history but not comprehensive by any stretch.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a long book that I read for a reading list. It made me really want to visit Japan and experience the culture and its idiosycracies. I think I would have to live there first in order to understand it best. It seemed a little too anthropology like for my taste though.

[Nikoleta · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is really well written, detailed description of Japanese mentality and life style. Sometimes seems to almost excuse Japanese from all the negative actions they took and highlights mostly positive aspects of Japanese life.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive review of history of Japan until 1990. Thought is was going to cover or have an addendum for more recent years so will be interesting observations I make when over there for a trip.

[Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

there's a lot about culture and japanese society in here. I liked it pretty much.