ABSTRACT
Japan's early modem era, the Tokugawa or Edo period (1600-1868) has been greatly re-evaluated since the 1980s. Initially, Edo tradition was juxtaposed to Meiji modernity and thus depicted as pre-modem, feudal and backward, marked by a conservative merchant class and an inhibited entrepreneurial spirit. Gradually, however, observers rediscovered the early modem era as modem Japan's imagined historical Other, as its mirror of modernity (Gluck 1998:262). The perception of business activities during the era received an enormous boost when scholars sought to explain Japan's economic success from the 1980s onward through a re-examination of practices, now referred to as early modem, in existence in Tokugawa mercantile organisations. Similarly, after the burst of the economic bubble, the Edo period was utilised in order to find solutions and the right frame of mind to overcome business stagnation. The Tokugawa period thus formed the genial soil for the development of modem practices and institutions, I and offered a survival strategy as an inspiration for contemporary companies.2 1 The most comprehensive effort in this respect is definitely the collection of articles edited by Oishi and Nakane (1986), partly translated into English and published as Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modem Japan (Nakane and Oishi 1990). 2 2 The following catch phrases can serve as examples: 'CI (Corporate Identity), Internationalisation, Recycling ... The Edo period business sense is alive today' (Domon 1996). 'Edo's true face: more energetic than Meiji, richer than Showa, more dynamic than Heisei: the shape ofEdo brought back to life' (Ishii 1991).
