PLANET JAPAN: DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY IN CRISIS

Author: Jonathan Gadir

Publisher: CreateSpace

Date: May 2011

Book details:

In this collection of essays, Australian journalist and sociologist Jonathan Gadir probes the issues that fascinate him most about Japan. This exploration of Japanese social life goes beneath the surface, featuring a hybrid of sociological, market/consumer trend and psychological analyses of a country which often mystifies outsiders.

Ranging across diverse topics including the reasons behind Japan’s social order, low crime, horrifying working hours, unique economic arrangements, English language industry and public drunkenness, the articles offer a fine-grained view of the only alternative modernity to the pan-European world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Order by Accident: ‘Groupiness’ in Japan

The Japanese Workplace and Emile Durkheim

The Value Of Japanese Inefficiency

Refutation of Neoliberalism?

Working Hours in Japan: Culture or Capitalism?

Others’ Eyes

The English Industry

Post-modern Passover

Book cover image:

Alternative cover image:

Incidentally, this little graphic was one I commissioned with the idea of putting on the book cover. I thought it symbolised how Japan is important for the rest of the world.

Then I realised that the motif of the rising sun and the world is more likely to be interpreted as being connected with Japanese historical militarism, expansionism etc; none of which are relevant to the book. I still think it is a pleasing design, but one which may suit a completely different type of book.