In 1857, Townsend Harris, the first American minister to Japan, had a hard time convincing the country's feudal leaders that doing business with the United States might be a good thing. He preached the mid-Victorian gospel that foreign trade would make their nation wealthier and stronger, but his ideas were not well received in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan's capital.
For more than 200 years, the Japanese had been strict mer- cantilists, hoarding gold and silver instead of using them for trade. Under...
astonished
the world by trouncing Tsar Nicholas 11's Russia in a modern
East Asian war. Imperial Japan had made its entrance onto the
world stage.
Nobody should have been surprised. After 1889, when the Meiii Constitution established a solid nolitical foundation at home, Japan's leaders had immediately turned their attention overseas. Beginning with the brief 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War, Tokyo embarked on a program of military and economic expan- sion, first to secure its gains against the Western...
's economy, it is rapid, unceasing change. Japan is dependent on the outside world for most of its raw materials (including 99 percent of its oil). It is far more vulnerable than America or most West Eurooean countries to the vicissitudes of the international marketplace. To compensate, the Japanese have made many wrenching adjustments-mostly ignored and seldom imitated in the West. Over the past 36 years, only through great adaptability and continued domestic competition has Japan been able to...
ese blacksmith worked the bellows with his feet. "Perhaps this is an important difference be- tween a European and an Asiatic," he reflected in The Mikado's Empire (Harper, 1876; Scholarly Resources, 1973). "One sits down to work, the other stands up to it." From this in- auspicious debut, the Western study of Japan's economy has progressed.
Asia's New Giant (Brookings, 1976, cloth & paper), edited econ- omists Hugh Patrick and Henry Ro- sovsky, is perhaps the best general...
public agencies and private institutions
"Strategies for Effective Desegregation: A Synthesis of Findings."
Center for Education and Human Development Policy, Institute for Public Policy Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 37212. 195 pp. $10.
Authors: Willis D. Hawley et al.
School desegregation-even some of its staunchest initial backers believe that it has largely failed to end racial separation and boost minority stu- dents' academic performance. Yet after examining more t...
"If I live till I am 80 years old," Charles Darwin wrote after fin- ishing his first book, "I shall not cease to marvel at finding my- self an author." That book was The Voyage of the Beagle (1837), in which Darwin recorded his experiences and observations as a naturalist on the Beagle's globe-circling journey, begun 150 years ago. From this trip came much of the raw material and in- spiration for Darwin's great work, On the Origin of Species (1859), in which he first propounded...
Literary scholars have enshrined James Joyce as the most influ- ential voice in 20th-century fiction, and this winter they are celebrating the centennial of his birth. Despite his monumental reputation~or perhaps because of it-many Americans have shied away from his work, particularly the last two novels, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Surveying Joyce's career, critic Frank McConnell here argues that the works of the Irish genius should not be considered daunting or inaccessible. Read Joyce, McConnell...
Sheldon Needed: Politics S. Wolin, in democracy (Oct. 1981), 43
West 61st St., New York, N.Y. 10023,
When Ronald Reagan ran for President, he pledged his commitment not only to traditional morality and patriotism but also to a particular set of economic theories. Since World War 11, economic viewpoints have increasingly prevailed in public policy-among liberals, influ- enced the likes of Lester Thurow's Zero Sum Society, and conserva- tives, versed in the Laffer curve and supply-side economics....
cutting back the percentage of cases personally handled judges.
Americans have always believed that justice must be safeguarded by individuals of unusual learning, wisdom, and integrity. Yet from 1940 to 1980, the number of appeals filed in federal courts jumped by 573 percent, from 3,446 to 23,200. Meanwhile, the number of judges grew by only 131 percent (from 57 to 132). The average judge's caseload has soared from 60 to 175 (or 525, counting the cases that members of the three-judge appeals...
Otis L. Graham, Jr., in
as Floundered The Center Magazine (Mar.-Apr. 1981),
P.O. Box 4068, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93103.
An automobile jerrybuilt with unmatched parts will break down sooner or later. Similar incongruities largely explain the decline of American liberalism, argues Graham, a University of North Carolina historian.
Nineteenth-century "liberals" were predominantly small business- men. Opposed to the encumbrances of mercantilism and resentful of the state's role, they talked...