Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System

by James Fallows

Overview

In a timely, even prophetic, portrait of Asia's rise and the magnitude of its challenge to the West, Fallows demolishes the myth that Japan is a capitalist country built on the Western model. He demonstrates instead how Japan's economic system treats business as an instrument of national interest while casting aside the traditional Western values of individual enterprise and human rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679761624
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/24/1995
Edition description:	Reprinted Edition
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has reported from around the world and has worked in software design at Microsoft, as the editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. He is currently a news analyst for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered and a visiting professor at the University of Sydney.

Editorial Reviews

Suggesting that the U.S. does not yet comprehend the ramifications of the new form of capitalism developed in Japan, Fallows, a reporter on Asia for the Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals and author of the American Book Award-winning National Defense , details them. It is this style of capitalism, rather than communism or fascism, that challenges us now, he shows. Much of Fallows's review of Japanese history and development is familiar, but his insights and scope are fresh and commanding. The purpose of economic policy in the U.S., he maintains, is to stimulate individual spending; in Japan, economic policy rewards the producers rather than the consumers and is intended to make the nation strong and invulnerable. Fallows argues that not every nation's economic policy will or can follow the American model; Japan has introduced a different and successful model and we should learn from it. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the past decade hundreds of books have been published about Japan, ranging from the idolatrous-sounding Japan from Shogun to Superstate (St. Martin's, 1988) to the frankly negative theme of Michael Crichton's Rising Sun (Knopf, 1992). In contrast, Fallows ( National Defense , LJ 6/1/81) demonstrates how the Japanese economic system differs from the West's and explores some of the historical reasons for these disparities. Fallows takes Americans to task for assuming that all people and cultures are essentially the same. Westerners, he asserts, use ``the wrong mental tools to classify, shape, and understand the information they receive about Asia.'' For example, we ``know'' that government intervention interferes with business efficiency, but Tokyo intercedes actively in the Japanese economy. Fallows posits the thesis that the postwar American occupation influenced Japan in ways the United States is only beginning to analyze. Succinctly, the United States did the fighting and made the big decisions; Japan concentrated on economic growth. This worked well until the Cold War ended and Japan's economic might began to outstrip the West's. The author concludes by saying that economic competition is not a matter of right or wrong, but it favors those who make their own luck. Fallows has written a lively and well-researched book. Recommended for any library whose patrons are interested in contemporary Asia.-- Mary Chatfield, Angelo State Univ. Lib., San Angelo, Tex.

Library Journal