The Japanese

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Here is japan as only Edwin O. Reischauer can illuminate it-a brilliantly rounded portrait of the background, culture, and values of a country that may well play a unique role in solving the problems of the twenty-first century. After piacing Japan and its people in their historical and geographical setting, Reischauer weighs the paradoxes and particularities in contemporary Japanese society. He explores, forinstance, the contrast between group emphasis and individualism and the strong sense of hierarchy coexisting with a lack of classconsciousness and a highly egalitarian educational and social system. He offers a penetrating analysis of Japanese personality, identifying the ways in which the Japanese really are different from Westerners. Hc alsó provides a revealing description of the Japanese government and an up-to-the-minute discussion of Japanese politics, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese democracy and assaying its prospects. Finally, Reischauer evaluates Japan as a world power. He finds that Japan's very strengths-strong selfimage, exceptional homogeneity, close-knit society -often become handicaps in foreign relations. But, as Reischauer contends, the Japanese could contribute significantly to the future. As an economically successful country that has renounced war and the arms race, as harmonizer of a dynamic cultural mix and developer of effective skills to solve the problems of industrial, úrban life and mass democracy, Japan has the opportunity to lead the way toward establishing the "global community" of the new century. Reischauer has given us an elegantly simple and direct work that at once draws fully upon the wealth of his scholarship and experience and is infused on every page with his life-long rapport with the subject. Richly illustrated, The Japanese is certain to delight and reward readers everywhere. Vissza