| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Simon Partner. Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer. (Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1999. Pp. xiv, 303. Cloth $55.00, paper $19.95.

This fine book by Simon Partner is the latest addition to a growing body of literature that examines postwar Japan through the lens of history on the basis of rigorous research in the available primary materials. Partner sets out to understand "the arrival of a mass consumer society" (p. 2) in Japan by focusing on the rise of the electrical goods industry after 1945. His book succeeds admirably because its center of gravity is Japan's dynamic private sector: specifically, the process of interaction among technological change, private business, and social transformation. Focusing primarily on the period of the 1950s and 1960s, Partner traces the development of the makers of electrical appliances and consumer electronics (collectively referred to as "electrical goods") as well as the role of the mass media, particularly television, in shaping Japanese consumer culture. Although he draws heavily on the literature regarding postwar Japanese economic and business development as well as primary materials relating to companies such as Sony, Hitachi, and Matsushita (maker of Panasonic brand products), this is not simply an industry study. Rather, the book's defining feature and greatest strength is how it transcends conventional disciplinary boundaries, both drawing on and contributing to the existing scholarly literature on technology transfer, the mass media, transnational cultural relations, women's history, and gender roles in Japanese society. The result shows how "from the raw materials of technology and business activity emerged a social revolution centered on mass consumption and the ownership of desirable household goods" (p. 242). . . .

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