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Japan Restored: How Japan Can Reinvent Itself and Why This Is Important for America and the World
How Japan Can Reinvent Itself and Why This Is Important for America and the World.
In 1979, the book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America by Harvard University professor Ezra Vogel caused a sensation in the United States by pointing out that Japan was surpassing America as world economic leader; the book remains to this day the all-time bestseller in Japan of non-fiction by a Western author. The book was timely: Japan's subsequent "bubble era" of the 1980s saw the country booming. But since the economic bubble burst at the start of the 1990s, Japan has been in decline.
Japan Restored by Clyde Prestowitz, taking up Vogel's baton, is written as a vision of Japan in the year 2050 when the country's economic recovery has made it a world leader in every area of human endeavor. Prestowitz looks back to the present year as such a low point for Japan that a special reform commission was set up that helped the country regain its former position as a leader in technology, in business, and geopolitically. Looking at education, innovation, the role of women, corporate organization, energy, infrastructure, domestic government, and international alliances Prestowitz draws up a fascinating and controversial blueprint for the future success of Japan.
As the eyes of the world turn towards Japan in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics, Japan Restored is as timely as the 1979 Vogel book that inspired it.
In 1979, the book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America by Harvard University professor Ezra Vogel caused a sensation in the United States by pointing out that Japan was surpassing America as world economic leader; the book remains to this day the all-time bestseller in Japan of non-fiction by a Western author. The book was timely: Japan's subsequent "bubble era" of the 1980s saw the country booming. But since the economic bubble burst at the start of the 1990s, Japan has been in decline.
Japan Restored by Clyde Prestowitz, taking up Vogel's baton, is written as a vision of Japan in the year 2050 when the country's economic recovery has made it a world leader in every area of human endeavor. Prestowitz looks back to the present year as such a low point for Japan that a special reform commission was set up that helped the country regain its former position as a leader in technology, in business, and geopolitically. Looking at education, innovation, the role of women, corporate organization, energy, infrastructure, domestic government, and international alliances Prestowitz draws up a fascinating and controversial blueprint for the future success of Japan.
As the eyes of the world turn towards Japan in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics, Japan Restored is as timely as the 1979 Vogel book that inspired it.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
About the author
Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr.
16 books10 followersClyde Prestowitz (born 1941) is the founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute. He formerly served as counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan Administration. He is a labor economist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_V....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_V....
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 17, 2017
First of all, this is not a "Japan is great" kind of book. It implies that Japan is on the verge of collapse and the author couldn't help but warn the country. To urge Japan to reform itself, he took a unique approach to show what Japan could become if and only if it took considerably drastic measures.
I give three stars because the way the author presents the story is a bit confusing. All the events up to 2016 are facts while anything beyond 2016 is a hypothetical narrative. But because the author mixes facts and his imagination in each paragraph, it's a bid misleading.
But I am amazed by his in-depth study about the social and economic structure of Japan. I am Japanese born and raised in Japan, but I didn't know how and why the notorious lifetime employment was invented.
I really appreciate the prescription for restoration of Japan, but I doubt that our policy makers would take any of the recommendations seriously.
I give three stars because the way the author presents the story is a bit confusing. All the events up to 2016 are facts while anything beyond 2016 is a hypothetical narrative. But because the author mixes facts and his imagination in each paragraph, it's a bid misleading.
But I am amazed by his in-depth study about the social and economic structure of Japan. I am Japanese born and raised in Japan, but I didn't know how and why the notorious lifetime employment was invented.
I really appreciate the prescription for restoration of Japan, but I doubt that our policy makers would take any of the recommendations seriously.
January 24, 2016
Clyde Prestowitz spent decades doing business with and living in Japan. Japan Restored explores some of the most challenging issues in Japan today: its bureaucracy, its economic stagnation, its conservative family values, and suggests numerous policy suggestions to reverse course and align more closely with other democratic global leaders.
Japan Restored is a departure from most books on international affairs that I have read. Instead of narrating the ground truth in Japan, Prestowitz writes a prescriptive future-history where his personal policy recommendations are played out. The reason other books shy away from this task is that policy recommendations are more nuanced, require substantial research and focus on a narrower topic. Prestovitz outlines his recommendations, but left me intrigued rather than convinced by his proposals. Sometimes the proposals were reasonable, others less so: advocating for the "privatization of municipal elementary and middle schools" would take a book of its own. Ultimately the future storytelling served as a crutch for Prestowitz to be hand-wavey because in the end, the positive outcome in his future narrative excuses a lack of rigor in argument construction.
There is a lot to like about Japan Restored. I am sympathetic to many of the policy proposals. There's more detail than a typical Atlantic article. But I found myself wishing that Prestowitz would have further scoped the book to build a stronger argument, or gone whole hog with the future Japan story and dispensed with the skimpy policy analysis.
Japan Restored is a departure from most books on international affairs that I have read. Instead of narrating the ground truth in Japan, Prestowitz writes a prescriptive future-history where his personal policy recommendations are played out. The reason other books shy away from this task is that policy recommendations are more nuanced, require substantial research and focus on a narrower topic. Prestovitz outlines his recommendations, but left me intrigued rather than convinced by his proposals. Sometimes the proposals were reasonable, others less so: advocating for the "privatization of municipal elementary and middle schools" would take a book of its own. Ultimately the future storytelling served as a crutch for Prestowitz to be hand-wavey because in the end, the positive outcome in his future narrative excuses a lack of rigor in argument construction.
There is a lot to like about Japan Restored. I am sympathetic to many of the policy proposals. There's more detail than a typical Atlantic article. But I found myself wishing that Prestowitz would have further scoped the book to build a stronger argument, or gone whole hog with the future Japan story and dispensed with the skimpy policy analysis.
July 7, 2024
I feel like this book is such an amazing projection as well as a recommendation for Japan to take a reform route in order to escape from the crisis that the country has been experiencing.
However, since it was published in 2015, Mr. Prestowitz, just like many of us, probably did not predict about the pandemic in 2020. In which some of the events that have been projected in this book kinda missed. But, who are we to blame? The COVID-19 happened just like that, we can't even predict it.
This book is such a great opening for people who want to get to know about Japan, not in its glory form, but in its reality. As a former Japanese Studies student, this book feels like a reading materials. However, the whole materials are easily understood. The only thing that made me frustrated is that I somehow out of focus in some chapters. I guess, I could blame that to my undiagnosed ADHD.
Overall, well done, Mr. Prestowitz!
However, since it was published in 2015, Mr. Prestowitz, just like many of us, probably did not predict about the pandemic in 2020. In which some of the events that have been projected in this book kinda missed. But, who are we to blame? The COVID-19 happened just like that, we can't even predict it.
This book is such a great opening for people who want to get to know about Japan, not in its glory form, but in its reality. As a former Japanese Studies student, this book feels like a reading materials. However, the whole materials are easily understood. The only thing that made me frustrated is that I somehow out of focus in some chapters. I guess, I could blame that to my undiagnosed ADHD.
Overall, well done, Mr. Prestowitz!
February 7, 2019
Once a global powerhouse in economy and innovation, the author argues that Japan today was a shadow of its former self. Whatever brings Japan to its claim to greatness today ends up choking itself. The lifetime employment, its trade practice, its stagnation, everything. In this book, the author explains the challenges Japan face today, what has been done by them, and what is to be done. I can see that Japan is in trouble if these problems were not solved. Overall, it is an informative book for everyone who wishes to know why Japan lags behind China and South Korea today, although the author’s vision of Japan 2050 annoys me.
October 8, 2019
Haiku Review
Will Japan listen /
To ideas as bold as these? /
Fat (as sumo) chance!
Will Japan listen /
To ideas as bold as these? /
Fat (as sumo) chance!
August 10, 2021
Far to difficult to recognize when he is writing factual accurate information and when he drifts back into a fantasy world completely dominated by Japan.
October 24, 2025
Tokyo 2050? Beijing Welcomes You?
November 6, 2015
A very unique look at Japan, both their future and their future. Japan Restored tackles a variety of topics in an attempt to create and explain a plan that will save Japan from economic (and other types) disaster. At the beginning of each chapter, Prestowitz creates a science fiction like narrative of you, the reader, on your second visit to Japan (the first being in the year 2015). The chapters then go on to explain where Japan was (in 2015 and earlier) and how it theoretically got to strong economic, medical and social point is during your fictional visit. This narrative falls short in the final chapter when Prestowitz seems to imply that the book is for the Japanese and those who are connected to Japan in some way, thus erasing the need for the type of narrative he's constructed.
Prestowitz's plans seem well thought out, but he often repeats himself, taking away from the actual ideas he creates. We read, repeatedly, some of the same ideas -- not even given to us in different contexts. That's not to say this isn't a valuable book, because it is. It does give Japan (and perhaps the rest of the world as well), something to attain. Drawing from real world examples, Prestowitz's book is a very positive look on the future of not just Japan, but the rest of the world, an outlook which is often overlooked. Unfortunately, Prestowitz does not address many important issues, such as natural disasters (except those of the past, such as the tsunami that changed Japan's reliance on nuclear power) nor disease outbreaks that seem more and more common.
Though it reads like science fiction in many sections, the overall message is that Japan can right itself from it's sinking trajectory, but it must start immediately. This is a message, I think, that all nations could take to heart. If only they would.
Note: this book was provided as an arc by the publisher.
Prestowitz's plans seem well thought out, but he often repeats himself, taking away from the actual ideas he creates. We read, repeatedly, some of the same ideas -- not even given to us in different contexts. That's not to say this isn't a valuable book, because it is. It does give Japan (and perhaps the rest of the world as well), something to attain. Drawing from real world examples, Prestowitz's book is a very positive look on the future of not just Japan, but the rest of the world, an outlook which is often overlooked. Unfortunately, Prestowitz does not address many important issues, such as natural disasters (except those of the past, such as the tsunami that changed Japan's reliance on nuclear power) nor disease outbreaks that seem more and more common.
Though it reads like science fiction in many sections, the overall message is that Japan can right itself from it's sinking trajectory, but it must start immediately. This is a message, I think, that all nations could take to heart. If only they would.
Note: this book was provided as an arc by the publisher.
January 7, 2016
An interesting thought piece that asks "what if Japan launched a third modern reinvention?" The answer it seems would be national and global changes as big as those unleashed by the first two Japanese reinventions (the Meiji Restoration that modernized Japan and the post war recovery that built the economic powerhouse of the second half of the 20th century).
There are a lot of what ifs that have to come together to make things happen, but if any nation is capable of this it would be Japan. It's also interesting to note that the seeds of many of the changes needed have already been planted.
All that remains to be seen is if action is taken to grow those seeds to something more.
There are a lot of what ifs that have to come together to make things happen, but if any nation is capable of this it would be Japan. It's also interesting to note that the seeds of many of the changes needed have already been planted.
All that remains to be seen is if action is taken to grow those seeds to something more.
February 28, 2016
Labor economist and author Clyde Prestowitz projects Japan 35 years in the future this deftly handled study of sensitive issues disguised as a love letter to a country to which he’s been connected for 50 years. Japan’s economic decline after the 2011 tsunami spurred this peek into a crystal ball. It remains to be seen whether Prestowitz is psychi.
December 11, 2016
3.5 stars.
May 20, 2022
Good book
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews