"Wonderful material. The author is good on the importation not only of American technology but also of manufacturing ideas and marketing theories."—David E. Nye, author of Consuming Power

Co-founded 40 years ago, by a young engineer named Akio Morita, Sony is now one of the most powerful and respected multinational corporations in the world, and Morita is its outspoken chairman. This autobiography charts the growth of the company, from the initial attempts to make a tape recorder to the sales of Walkman.

Assembled in Japan investigates one of the great success stories of the twentieth century: the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. Contrary to mainstream interpretation, Simon Partner discovers that behind the meteoric rise of Sony, Matsushita, Toshiba, and other electrical goods companies was neither the iron hand of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry nor a government-sponsored export-led growth policy, but rather an explosion of domestic consumer demand that began in the 1950s. This powerful consumer boom differed fundamentally from the one under way at the same time in the United States in that it began from widespread poverty and comparatively miserable living conditions. Beginning with a discussion of the prewar origins of the consumer engine that was to take off under the American Occupation, Partner quickly turns his sights on the business leaders, inventors, laborers, and ordinary citizens who participated in the broadly successful effort to create new markets for expensive, unfamiliar new products. Throughout, the author relates these pressure-cooker years in Japan to the key themes of twentieth-century experience worldwide: the role of technology in promoting social change, the rise of mass consumer societies, and the construction of gender in advanced industrial economies. 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 2000. Assembled in Japan investigates one of the great success stories of the twentieth century: the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. Contrary to mainstream interpretation, Simon Partner discovers that behind the meteoric rise of Sony, Matsushi

A selection of outstanding Japanese products of this century, from gadgets and furnishings to office supplies and decorative objects. Features a comprehensive introduction to the history and traditions of Japanese product design and includes biographies of the leading designers, including Naoto Fukasawa, Tokujin Yoshioka and Toyo Ito.

For three years, seventeen university researchers worked with representatives of thirty-four corporations to analyze the present state of Japanese manufacturing and to identify the challenges Japan will face in the twenty-first century. The result of their study is Made in Japan. Winner of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize for 1999In 1989 the MIT Press published Made in America, a landmark study by The MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, an interdisciplinary group of MIT faculty members. The study analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of American industry and set forth a strategic plan for revitalizing American productivity. Inspired by the MIT study, the Japan Techno-Economics Society formed the Japan Commission on Industrial Performance (JCIP). For three years, seventeen university researchers worked with representatives of thirty-four corporations to analyze the present state of Japanese manufacturing and to identify the challenges Japan will face in the twenty-first century. The result of their study is Made in Japan. Made in Japan has a broader perspective than its American model, whose focus was limited to issues of productivity. The book is divided into three parts. Part I is a general overview. Part II is an in-depth analysis of seven industries: industrial electronics, consumer electronics, automobiles, metal products, industrial machinery, chemicals, and textiles. Part III identifies common problems and makes recommendations for industrial policy. The topics covered in the study are grounded in such fundamental issues as global environmental problems, competitiveness, and the free market economy system.

Made in Japan examines the artistic dialogue between East and West as it played out between 1945 and 1970. During this post-World War II period, Japanese printmakers effectively acted as ambassadors, bringing their aesthetic traditions into fruitful interaction with contemporary American trends and forging ties with artists, scholars, museums, and collectors. This volume presents for the first time an integrated history of innovative visual experimentation and pioneering cultural patronage. The creative print (sosaku hanga) movement originated in the early twentieth century, when Japanese artists sought to modernize their practice by embracing Euro-American concepts of originality and autonomy. The movement matured in the decades following World War II, when second- and third-generation sosaku hanga printmakers continued to experiment in stylistic, technical, and thematic terms. From the early 1950s, Japanese printmakers participated in a newly global art scene, achieving great success at international art exhibitions sponsored by the American and Japanese governments. The prints in this book range widely in treatment and medium, embracing woodcut, stencil, lithography, etching, mezzotint, aquatint, and screenprint. Made in Japan includes essays by Alicia Volk and Helen Nagata and biographies of the artists.

Colonel Sanders, Elvis, Mickey Mouse, and Jack Daniels have been enthusiastically embraced by Japanese consumers in recent decades. But rather than simply imitate or borrow from the West, the Japanese reinterpret and transform Western products and practices to suit their culture. This entertaining and enlightening book shows how in the process of domesticating foreign goods and customs, the Japanese have created a culture in which once-exotic practices (such as ballroom dancing) have become familiar, and once- familiar practices (such as public bathing) have become exotic. Written by scholars from anthropology, sociology, and the humanities, the book ranges from analyses of Tokyo Disneyland and the Japanese passion for the Argentinean tango to discussions of Japanese haute couture and the search for an authentic nouvelle cuisine japonaise. These topics are approached from a variety of perspectives, with explorations of the interrelations of culture, ideology, and national identity and analyses of the roles that gender, class, generational, and regional differences play in the patterning of Japanese consumption. The result is a fascinating look at a dynamic society that is at once like and unlike our own.