Book Review: Far East: The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000441 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
571
policy,
than
to
seek
to
rationalize
or
to
justify partisan
dogmas
of
the
Cold
War.
Whether
or
not
one
accepts
FitzGerald's
interpretations,
they
are,
at
least,
intelligible
and informative,
the
shortcomings
of
the
new
"original" not
withstanding.
Because
Wint
is
committed
to
an
entirely
different
orientation,
publicist
for
prognosticating
the
prospects
of
Communism (hence
dra-
gon
and
sickle)
in
the
cold
war,
he
is
faced
with
the
chronic
dilemma
that
before
his
lengthier
productions
are
ready
for
distribution,
they
are
dated.
More
serious, however,
is
the fact
that
the
few
references
to
long-term
historical
influences
(for
example,
on
page
110,
that
it
was
China's
mission,
in
the
pre-modern
period,
to spread
"the
Chinese
way
of
life,
Chinese
institutions
and
methods-all
things
Chinese--.
..
over
a
deprived
and
grateful
world")
are
on
occasion
erroneous and
usually
unsound.
In
effect,
all
Wint
has
done,
as
signified by
the
change
in
title,
is
to
chronicle
the
transfer
of
the
anti-communist
focus
from
Moscow
to
Peking.
The
chronicle
is
augmented
with
a
hastily
concocted
pot-pourri
of
ambiguous
and
hedged
prognostications
on
China's
potential to pro-
mote
revolution,
on
whether
nationalism
or
communism
will
prevail
as
the
pre-eminent
influence
in external
policy
formulation,
and on
the
position
of
the
Chinese
Communists
vis-d-vis
the
Soviet
Union
and
the
Asians
east
of
India.
Following
the
best
traditions
of
the serialists,
Wint
previews
the
plausibility
of
the
proposition
that
the
mantle
of
proponent
of
world
revolution
may pass
next
from
Peking to
Tokyo!
Since
it
seems
to
take
about
fifty
years
for
the
mantle
to
be
transferred,
we
can
look
forward
to
being spared
another
revision
of
this
book.
Briefly
then,
the
FitzGerald
book
may still
be
consulted
for
use
as
an
antidote
to
extremist interpretations
on
the
birth
and
character
of
Communist China.
Wint's
book
can
be
used
by
the
academic
specialist
to
demonstrate
emphatically
why
too
much
reliance
should
not
be
placed
on
interpretations
of
expert
commentators.
University
of
Toronto
JACK
GERSON
THE
ORIGINS
OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
IN
MEIJI
JAPAN.
By
Johannes
Hirsch-
meier.
1964.
(Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press.
Toronto:
Saun-
ders.
x,
354pp.
$7.50)
In
this short
study,
originally
his
Harvard
dissertation
in
economics,
Father
Hirschmeier
lays
to
rest
the
theories
that
the entrepreneurs
who
initiated
Japan's
industrialization
derived
from
any
one
social
class,
such as
the
merchant,
as
E.
Herbert
Norman
argued,
or
the
samurai,
as
George
B.
Sansom
believed.
By
examining
the
biographies
of
the fifty
leading
entrepreneurs
in
the
crucial
period
from
the
1860's
to
the
1890's,
the
author
discovers
that
their
social
background
was
irrelevant.
There
was
surprisingly
equal
representation relative
to numerical
strength
from
the
samurai,
merchant
and rich
peasant
classes.
In
all
instances,
the
class
attitudes
of
the
late
Tokugawa
period
posed
obstacles
that
were
overcome
by
dissatisfied
individuals
who
achieved
social
mobility
in
a
disintegrating
society.
Shocked by
the
realization
of
how
far
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