Japan as Number One: Lessons for America [Paperback]

Ezra Vogel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1999

Based on the most up-to-date sources, as well as extensive research and direct observation, Japan as Number One analyzes the island nation's development into one of the world's most effective industrial powers, in terms of not only economic productivity but also its ability to govern efficiently, to eduate its citizens, to control crime, to alleviate energy shortages, and to lessen pollution. Ezra Vogel employs criteria that America has traditionally used to measure success in his thoughtful demonstration of how and why Japanese institutions have coped far more effectively than their American counterparts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ezra Vogel is Professor of Socialogy and Chariman of the Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse (September 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583484108
• ISBN-13: 978-1583484104
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Prescient Essay Which Still Holds Lessons For Today, July 9, 2008

By 

Etienne ROLLAND-PIEGUE (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Paperback)

I have just finished Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One and I found it a surprisingly good book. I say surprisingly good because I had some preconceived notions about the book without having even read it. I thought that it was full of cliches, that it was too positive about Japan and that it ignored the bad aspects of Japanese economy and society, that it wasn't based on serious research and that one could only learn distorted lessons from it.

And in a way all these criticisms proved to be true: the cliches in the book are those generalizations that Japanese love to repeat about themselves, especially in the presence of foreigners; painting a rosy picture was all too natural for a country that had experienced more than two decades of unprecedented growth and overcome the first oil shock; most of the structural weaknesses of the Japanese economy were not already visible (although the book does pinpoint social weaknesses), Western scholars who had studied contemporary Japan were only a handful, and the knowledge base was very thin; and the book proved too pessimistic in its depiction of American ills that it thought could be cured by drawing lessons from the Japanese model.

So what makes it a good book? First, one has to consider the date when it was published: 1979. At that time, an academic pretending that Japan was a number one nation may only have invited incredulity and bewilderment. Americans knew very little about Japan or, if they did, were mostly attracted to the traditional aspects of its culture and national character. But here was a book that was telling the general public that "Japan has dealt more successfully with more of the basic problems of postindustrial society than any other country", and that "Japanese success had less to do with traditional character traits than with specific organizational structures, policy programs, and conscious planning" that America would do well to imitate. One can barely imagine how new and provocative these statements were at that time. But the book came to define the zeitgeist of the following decade, when learning from Japan was all the rage.

Second, at a time when little was known about Japan, the book gathered an impressive array of knowledge spanning all aspects of Japanese economy and society. This knowledge formed the conventional wisdom about Japan that was to be echoed and amplified in numerous publications, seminars, and everyday conversations. Most of this conventional wisdom is no longer true, and some wasn't even accurate at the time the book was published, but these generalizations inherited from the past still influence the beliefs that foreigners entertain about Japan or the image that Japanese hold about themselves. People who specialize in contemporary Japan will only ignore them at their peril.

Third, although the lessons for America that Vogel identified some thirty years ago may no longer hold, the idea that Japan has lessons for other countries is still as true today as when it was first formulated. The reasons listed by the author are as follows. For one, Japan, unlike Western countries, has consciously examined and restructured all traditional institutions on the basis of rational considerations and offers the best example of intelligent design in modern societies. A second reason why Japan is a useful mirror is that of all the industrialized democratic countries, Japan, as the only non-Western one, is the most distinctive, and thus offers must sought-after variance that allows the testing of hypotheses and the validation of theories. Third, circumstance has forced Japan to pioneer in confronting problems that other developed countries later experienced with a time lag. If only by its failures and challenges, Japan still holds lessons for America and other Western countries.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is an excellent long seller book, because of his clear investigation, December 4, 2011

By 

Cherry, K - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Paperback)

This book investigated the Japanese development after the Second World War, especially in 1970s era, when Japan developed as the one of the swiftest development in the world, like nowadays China and India.
The author concentrates and investigates, not only the economic development, but also (rather) investigates the Japanese Knowledge, Politics, Company, Education, Welfare, and Crime Control....like "Soft Power" in japan, which we use these words in this century. So we can profoundly understand what's sustaining the Japanese development, it is not miracle, but people's group consensus, education, and fairness and others.
He gave a warm eye to Japan, not only for Japanese, but rather for American. He wrote, it is the Mirror for America, and what will be the lesson can a western nation learns from the East?
Such high quality modesties even after the World War II, at that time the USA was really the No.1, until now, but he didn't become arrogant, but saw and investigate very warm and scientific eyes. Perhaps it was the most important and wonderful reason, why this book was sold so long time, not only in Japan, but in the US, as well.
His modesties and clearness showed Japanese society and US Society, which the US must not become arrogant, even for Asian defeated country, if they work diligently with good team work and strong consensus of Companies, they could become as No. 1. It is so hopeful book, if we are defeated and weak, or poor, we can do anything, like Japanese, at that time. Excellent book, I recommend.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars True Foresight: The jury is still out, December 13, 2006

By 

Timothy Takemoto (Yamaguchi-shi, Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Paperback)

Written in 1979 before the world new just how big that little country on the edge of Asia was going to be, this book prefigured the realisation if not the reality of Japan's rise to economic power by a decade. In that decade many more 'Japan Hype' books came out, and a decade or two later the "Japanese miracle" is seen as a debacle. But Japanese economy remains the second largest in the world and there are still lessons to be learned from the Japanese in various areas such as education (still doing far better than the US despite the lack of inter-school competition), public safety (still way up at the top of the OECD tables), and manufacturing technology and management. Japan has its problems, and so does the US, but who would have thought, when this book was written, that the Japanese economy and Japanese way, would compare almost on a par with that of the USA some thirty years later? Which economy will turn out to be 'number one' is still open to debate, but as a book that started the debate, it deserves to be read for its insight.

Furthermore, despite the initial postwar success of the Japanese economy the Japanese have and continue to import Western economic, educational and management systems wholesale, with decreasing sucess. Who knows, perhaps if this book had been read *more* in Japan, and the Japanese had more confidence in their own convictions, the Japanese way might even still be flourishing. The Japanese themselves, increasingly nationalist and increasingly self-confident, are starting to think so.