The Enigma of Japanese Power

by Karel van Wolferen

This is a great example of somebody refusing to be befuddled, as a lot of people in Asia are, by this idea that, ‘We’re like this because our culture is like this,’ when in fact it’s the product of long-standing political arrangements and an attempt by power-holders to hang on to those arrangements because they suit them. I spent many years in Japan and Japan is very, very different from China. But the book is just a classic at describing the power structure as it really is, and not how the power holders would like you to think it is.