Japan In Christopher Gerteis's From Postwar To Post-Bubble

Postwar Japan was a country in shambles; its economy and infrastructure devastated from the war. It was from the ashes of the Second World War that the modern nation of Japan arose to become the third largest economic power in the world based upon GDP. It was from this peak in the early 1990’s that Japan began its long period of stagnation which continues to this day. This tale of recovery and eventual stagnation is the basis of the book From Postwar To Post-Bubble by Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S. George. In the book they outline in four section the processes that occurred in Japan that brought about the story of this modern nation. Each of the four sections of the book focus on a particular aspect of the country that developed throughout

Japan following the war came to see the United States as an ideal. This era began when Pan Am began service to Tokyo in 1947 and expanded as the cultural consumption of American cultural material exploded in Japan. Many viewed the United States as “a country of opportunity, nothing is denied, everything goes so long as you work hard” (Gerteis, 211). This consumption of American culture was not the only change however. The Second World War profoundly influenced Japan particularly in its national aims; the financial troubles since 1991 again redefined the goals of the nation's, leading to three distinct stages of the country. Before WW2 Japan had two simple goals “rich nation, strong military” (Gerteis, 205), following the war the nation defined goals of doubling GDP and improving its international standing, and following the 1991 bubble “acceptance that Japan’s global role and importance might shrink to the point where the nation ignored” (Gerteis, 206). Following the bubble of 1991 the faith of the Japanese citizenry in their government fled and increasingly Japan fell into a state of retrospection desiring again the golden years of the 60’s, 70’s, and early 80’s. Unfortunately for Japan this dreaming of past times did nothing to improve their economic condition “imagined golden ages can never be recovered” (Confucius,