ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book essays to discern some of the new shapes and directions in which Japan might reorient itself in the wake of the collapse of the Cold War, the attainment by Japan of economic superpower status, and the emergence of Asia as one of the three political and economic foci of the emerging world order. It devotes to aspects of political economy—construction, leisure, and agriculture—with the implications of each for society, politics, the environment, and sustainability. The early 1990s in Japan were not particularly good years. Many assumptions had been shaken by the events of the post-Cold War, post—Liberal-Democratic Party, post-"bubble," and post-boom economy. In 1995, unemployment was statistically insignificant. The nine biggest banks in the world were all Japanese, as were the major trading companies and many of the major industrial corporations.
