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Rating: 
Summary: Painful, Dated and Inaccurate
Review: I am an enormous fan of Japan, widely interested in it's politics, economy and culture. Perhaps that is why this book disappoints me so much. The text is hard to read - much more appropriate for an academic journal than a general text. (There are 40+ footnotes in each chapter, making it seem like a list of quotations rather than anything real) This would be forgivable if the conclusions were either clear or accurate. (Example: The comment that Japan is on the verge of inflation. I'm sure most policy makers in Japan wishes this were true, but it's been stuck in a quagmire of deflation for quite some time) Lastly, the book just is not timely. For a work with 1st and 2nd editions in 2000 and 2003, most of the references are from the 1970s and mid 1980s. There has been a lot of post-bubble scholarship that is missed. I am wholly dissatisfied with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Painful, Dated and Inaccurate
Review: I am an enormous fan of Japan, widely interested in it's politics, economy and culture. Perhaps that is why this book disappoints me so much. The text is hard to read - much more appropriate for an academic journal than a general text. (There are 40+ footnotes in each chapter, making it seem like a list of quotations rather than anything real) This would be forgivable if the conclusions were either clear or accurate. (Example: The comment that Japan is on the verge of inflation. I'm sure most policy makers in Japan wishes this were true, but it's been stuck in a quagmire of deflation for quite some time) Lastly, the book just is not timely. For a work with 1st and 2nd editions in 2000 and 2003, most of the references are from the 1970s and mid 1980s. There has been a lot of post-bubble scholarship that is missed. I am wholly dissatisfied with this book.
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