Not since World War II has Japan faced a crisis like the one before it now. An apparently endless recession has weakened the foundations of the traditional family and severed the bond between Japan's corporations and employees. Unruly children turn classrooms into battlefields. Ultranationalist pride and xenophobia are celebrated in best-selling comic books and championed by media superstars, including the governor of Tokyo. Upheavals across the society have significant ramifications for America. As the Japanese reject their traditions wholesale, they view their half-century-old connection to the United States with mounting skepticism. Drawing on his fluent Japanese and unmatched intimacy with the culture, John Nathan reveals a nation newly unmoored from the traditions that have shored it up and sometimes stifled it. Dramatic changes in business are augured by Carlos Ghosn, the Brazilian president of Nissan, once scorned as an outsider, now hailed for reviving a moribund giant. The soft-spoken artist Yoshinori Kobayashi foments and reflects rabid nationalism among millions with his hugely popular comic books. Yasuo Tanaka, a puckish writer and bon vivant, wins the governorship of Nagano and revolutionizes Japanese politics with his radical populism. Nathan delves beyond Japan's celebrities to map the epic shifts in daily life. He unveils the horrors of the Japanese school system. He goes inside a "career transition service" to witness the novel, nuanced rituals of job-hunting Japanese-style. He takes the pulse of ordinary citizens who are caught up in the country's many profound social shifts: agitprop pop culture, emerging feminism, environmentalism, teenage consumerism, entrepreneurship, and more. With immediacy and élan, John Nathan dispels conventional wisdom about Japan and replaces it with a brilliant vision of a country roiling with pride, uncertainty, creativity, fear, and hope.

This book constitues the first attempt of its kinds to probe the major features of modern Japanese organization that have played such a critical role in Japan's extraordinarily rapid economic development. The contributors inclue prominent academic business consultants such a Peter Drucker of the United states and Kazuo Noda of Japan; Japanese government officials such as Yoshihisa Ojimi, former Administrative Vice-Minister of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and Taishiro Shirai, a member of the Central Labor Relations Commission; as well as outstanding Western experts on modern Japanese organization. The essays deal not only with Japanese government and business but also with teh structures of a newspaper and a university and with the role of Japanese intellectuals in modern organization. The portrait of Japanese organization that emerges is much more dynamic and volatile than has been generally supposed. One finds business and government managers creatively using so-called "traditional practices" in novel ways and undertaking bold departures to achieve new purposes. The findings contradict the view that decision sten from below. Not only do executive have an important role in initiating action; but lower-level officials function within a context defined by their superiors. Far greater tensions and conflict exist within organizations than is commonly reported by outsiders, especially in institutions like the university where conflicts often paralyze the decision-making process. Similarly, there is far greater divergence of interest among different sectors of society than one might infer from the stereotypical view of "Japan, Inc." And since the high level of consensus supporting the fundamental commitment to economic growth is now weakening increasing divergence may be anticipated in the future. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.

A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard is the highly acclaimed, moving debut of Levy Hideo (also known as Ian Hideo Levy), a white American author living in Japan who writes fiction and nonfiction in Japanese. Set against the political and social upheavals of the 1960s, which include student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S.-Japan Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty (AMPO), the novel tells the story of Ben Isaac, a blond-haired, blue-eyed American youth living with his father at the American consulate in Yokohama. Chafing against his father's strict authority and the cultural trappings of an America that grows more and more remote, Ben flees his home to live with Ando, his Japanese friend. Refusing to speak English with Ben, Ando shows the young American the way to Shinjuku, the epicenter of Japan's countercultural movement and the closest Ben has every felt to home. As Ben struggles to understand the full contours of his identity, Levy's coming-of-age novel offers an eloquent elegy to a lost time. From the vantage point of a privileged and alienated "outsider" (gaijin), A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard beautifully captures a heady, eventful moment in Japanese history. Ben's experiences virtually recreate Levy's own youth. Wandering the streets of Shinjuku, Ben can barely decipher the signs around him or make sense of the sounds that reach his ears. Eventually, the symbols and sensations take root, disproving the common assumption that foreigners can never really know Japanese language and culture. Through Ben's explorations, both he and the author break free from English and the constraints of being a "gaijin." Ben's character plays a leading role in each of the book parts: "A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard," "The End of November," and "One of the Guys."

"Revere the Emperor, Destroy the Traitors"-armed with this slogan, on February 26, 1936. Rebellious Japanese troops led by members of the Young Officers' Movement seized the center of Tokyo and murdered several prominent officials. The Young Officers wanted a "Showa Restoration" whereby political and economic power would be restored to the Emperor and people. The privileged classes were to be abolished, wealth redistributed, and the state, rather than big business, was to control the economy. Although the rebellion was suppressed in four days, it dramatized ideological clashes and factional strife within the Imperial Army and the tensions between civil and military authorities.The incident still stirs emotions in Japan and fascinates Japanese writers; Mishima Yukio, the famous novelist who committed suicide by seppuku in 1970, was a great admirer of the Young Officers. This exciting account by Ben-Ami Shillony includes the first full examination of the backgrounds and ideologies of the leaders, and discusses the crucial roles of such figures as the Emperor himself and his brother Prince Chichibu.Originally published in 1973.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

At the turn of the century, a blizzard maroons guests in a mountain inn in Japan. They are an odd lot and include a theater troupe. There is robbery, murder and love. The protagonist is the innkeeper's apprentice. A first novel.