The Japanese consumer : an alternative economic history of modern Japan / Penelope Francks.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Francks, Penelope, 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consumption (Economics)--Japan--History.

Consumption (Economics).

Consumers--Japan--History.

Consumers.

History.

Japan.

Physical Description:

xii, 249 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Summary:

"By the late twentieth century, Japanese people were renowned as the world's most avid and knowledgeable consumers of fashion, luxury and quality, while the goods that embodied their tastes and lifestyle were becoming a part of global culture. Penelope Francks' book offers an alternative account of Japan's modern economic history from the perspective of the consumer. Tracing Japan's economy from the eighteenth century to the present, she shows how history has conditioned what Japanese people consume and compares their experiences with those of Europe and North America. In so doing the author presents a lucid and informed account of everyday life in Japan, exploring what people eat, how they dress, the household goods they acquire, and their preferred shopping and leisure activities. This beautifully illustrated book succeeds in making economic history palatable and entertaining. It will be a treat for students and all those interested in Japanese society and culture"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Japan and the history of consumption 1

2 Shopping in the city: urban life and the emergence of the consumer in Tokugawa Japan 11

The great cities as centres of consumption 12

Consumption and everyday life in the cities 27

Goods, the state and society 40

3 Country gentlemen, ordinary consumption and the development of the rural economy 47

The rural elite and consumption 48

Everyday consumption in the countryside 54

Consumption and 'rural-centred' economic growth 66

4 Civilising goods': consumption in the industrialising world 74

Newspapers, trains and electricity: the birth of the modern infrastructure of consumption 76

'Civilising grain': food and drink in the emerging urban industrial world 87

Clothes and household goods: fashion, novelty and changing tradition 97

Consumer goods and the path of economic development 102

5 Living with modernity: the emerging consumer of the inter-war years 108

Cities, suburbs and shopping 109

Everyday life in the modern world 123

Attitudes to modern consumption 136

6 The electrical household: consumption, and the economic miracle 145

From war and occupation to economic miracle: state, society and mass consumption 146

Consuming the bright life 163

Consuming and saving: the individual and society 176

7 New tribes and nostalgia: consumption in the late twentieth century and beyond 183

Shopping in the city, late twentieth-century style 184

Consumption in practice in the post-miracle years 193

The ambivalent consumer 207

8 The Japanese consumer past and present 218.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780521875967

052187596X

0521699320

9780521699327

OCLC:

401142061

Online:

Publisher description

Contributor biographical information