Many academic and journalistic books were published in Europe and in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s on the so-called Japanese economic miracle. Technology was a key issue in all of them. In a sometimes caricatured view, the attention of scholars focused on the state (industrial policy) and the acquisition of foreign technology as the most important ways to achieve industrial development and economic growth after the Meiji Restoration. Industrial technologies were at the core of development and the catching-up process in the modern and contemporary history of Japan. But the historical roots of this phenomenon are far more complex than solely the industrial policy implemented by the state. This book by Minor Sawai on the Japanese National Innovation System during the first part of the twentieth century gives an illuminating understanding of technological and industrial development in Japan and sheds light on a major source of the competitiveness of Japanese firms during this high-growth period, namely, technology.
