Japan: Beyond the End of History

Japan: Beyond the End of History assesses Japan’s significance, in fact and in theory, for the Western traditions of political philosophy and practice from Adam Smith and Hegel to the French deconstructionists and today’s ‘end of history’ theorists. The issues covered range from the industrial policy of the founders of the Meiji state to the painful recession of the early 1990s. Francis Fukuyama has famously argued that, with the collapse of Soviet communism, the only viable system for the future is liberal-democratic capitalism in the Anglo-American mould. This would suggest that East Asian mercantilism, state-led and often authoritarian, is doomed. This book considers an alternative theory: that Japanese- style nationalist development offers a far greater challenge to Western theory and values than the fallen systems of Eastern Europe ever represented.