Sheldon Garon explores how the modern state and ordinary people in Japan have competed and cooperated throughout the twentieth century in pursuit of their own interests and goals, much as peoples and states have interacted elsewhere in the world.  By revealing how the state and ordinary people negotiated and interacted to effect modern Japan's "culture" of savings, Garon provides an important service in correcting those culturalist stereotypes that portray Japanese people as necessarily obsessed with savings because of some putative quality of their culture.

Cosponsored by: Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of History, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center for International Business Education and Research, International Programs and Studies, Women's Studies Program