Japanese Society

More about the book

Why do the Japanese always go for holidays in groups? Does a professor ever become a politician in Japan? Do the Japanese experience what we ‘family life’? What motivates the ordinary Japanese man-in-the-street? Professor Nakane, writing with an intimate knowledge of her own people, provides the answers in her fascinating book, Japanese society, although capitalist and industrialized, runs along very different lines from ours. Analysing the structure of the society, rather than explaining it in cultural or historical terms, she shows how the vertical principles of rank and hierarchy dominate all relationships—professional, personal, industrial, political—whatever the environment. As Professor Nakane points out, modern Japan’s progress is founded, ironically, on social patterns which existed centuries ago. —from the back cover of the book Includes an Index Publisher’s series: Pelican Sociology