Despitethe fact I deeply admire Japanese culture, I had never read a book that wasentirely about Japan. Because of this fact, an introductory book seemed to bethe logical solution for this problem. What caughtmy attention about Japan: Profile of aPostindustrial Power was that not only it was written in the early 1980s (presumidlybefore political correctness), but also the usage of the expressionpostindustrial. The use of that term suggested a narrative more focused onsocioeconomic transitions and therefore generational change as well. Thenarrative starts by describing the geography of Japan, an island nation thathas only 90 percent of the size of California. To make things more challengingto the Japanese, most of the main land of Japan is mountainous, unsuitable forfarming or habitation, leading to most of the population being concentratedalong the coastal areas. On top of that Japan has very few natural resourcesand suffers from frequent and strong earthquakes. The Japanesethemselves are not native to modern day Japan, having probably migrated fromChina. The natives of the land are called Ainu and there are very few thatstill remain, most of them having some degree of admixture to the Japanese. Afterdescribing the geography and climate of the island, as well as how the modernday Japanese arrived at that location, the author turns into a description ofthe traditional Japanese: namely the Ancient and Feudal periods of Japan, themost readily associated with Japan because of the samurais and other nationalmythos. Mr. Burksmakes a fascinating description of the Japanese mindset by which the communitywas far more important than the individual, the emperor was a paternal figureand source of the benevolent government. Contrasting with Western Europeans, noattempt of an universal moral code existed, the ethics being entirely based oncircumstances like social class and the benefit of the group. No separation ofreligion and politics existed and it was a well understood fact that people areby nature unequal. Besides somechanges that were forced upon Japan by the American occupation (like theseparation of religion and politics and the role of the emperor) most of thisdescription is still accurate of the Japanese populace. Other than the economics and psychologyof the traditional Japan, the book dives more deeply into describing theJapanese culture from the architecture to pottery and from sculptures topoetry. During the classic period of Japan, their cultural role model wasChina. A suddenchange happened when the Portuguese and later other Europeans set foot inJapan. The whites soon introduce firearms to Japan and many other technologicaladvancements, which at first was very well received and then rejected by theJapanese elites who saw them as a threat to their way of life. During thistransitional period that ends with the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan closed itsports for most Europeans in an effort to preserve their traditions and way oflife, however, not shutting themselves completely of Western influence, as theypermitted the Dutch only to stay in limited areas of Japan. Many samurais alsowent to study in the Netherlands and came back home with ideas ofmodernization. In thefollowing Meiji Era (1868-1912) Japan unified itself as a nation-State,throwing the old fractured power structure of Feudalism away. The countryquickly modernized and became an