Minoru Sawai - Böcker

Economic stagnation in the 1970s heavily influenced public perception of small business in the industrialized world. Suddenly, small businesses were seen as the dynamic creator of new jobs, as a source of new technology, as a flexible mode of organization able to outmanoeuvre larger firms, and as an important key to community revitalization. Because of its inherent diversity and complexity, however, small business does not easily lend itself to traditional quantitative consideration, and relatively scant scholarly attention has been paid either to the role of small business in the wider economy or to potentially valuable international comparison. In Small Firms, Large Concerns, G-7 researchers and scholars follow the process of small business development in North America, Europe, and Japan. They examine economic growth and social stability; the links between small and big business; and the resilience and vulnerability of small business management.Fuji Business History seriesGeneral Editor: Professor Akira Kudo, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo Series Adviser: Professor Mark Mason, Yale University This is the third volume in the collaboration between OUP and the Business History Society of Japan to publish the `Fuji Conference Series' under the general editorship of Professor Akira Kudo. The series itself has been established for more than twenty years and is a major international forum for scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America. Books in the series were formerly published by the University of Tokyo Press.

The mainfocus of this editedvolume is an examination of dynamic relationships among Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the northeastern region of China, and the economic development of each area in East Asia from the 1910s to the end of WorldWar II. The development of foreign trade in East Asia, therelations between industrialization and consumption in Korea, the transactions infertilizers and the development of small-scale industries in Taiwan are preciselyexamined. Atpresent, East Asia is a major economic center of the world. It is necessary to lookclosely not only at both sides of the “exploitation or development undercolonization” paradigm but also at the prewar factors that spurred East Asian economicgrowth in the postwar decades. A noteworthy characteristic of the Japanese colonial empirewas the close economic and geographic relations among Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the northeastern region of China. Economic integration within the empire strengthenedconsiderably in the interwar years and remained high even during the war ascompared to that in European countries and their colonies. What was theirreversible change in each colonial economy by means of forced incorporationinto the Japanese empire? What was the impact on economic subjects such asmerchants, manufacturers, managers, and workers through the colonial regime? Thisbook provides readers with broad perspectives that are indispensable given thatthe factors discussed herein are the historical origins of current issues.

The mainfocus of this editedvolume is an examination of dynamic relationships among Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the northeastern region of China, and the economic development of each area in East Asia from the 1910s to the end of WorldWar II.

This is the first book to examine the process of railway development in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China from historical and comparative perspectives. Moreover, it discusses and compares the East Asian experiences of railway development with cases in Germany, which was a mainstay of railway development in Europe.After the opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, the country achieved import substitution of locomotives in half a century. This book explores the social capability of Meiji Japan to overtake the advanced countries in railway technology. Parallel with the expansion of the Japanese empire, a large team of engineers constructed and operated the colonial government railways of Taiwan and Korea and the South Manchuria Railway. The book clearly outlines the education and training of these engineers. The management capabilities of the colonial railways and South Manchuria Railway were transferred to the postwar period, and such expertise supported the economic development of each country and region. These dramatic East Asian experiences of railway development are compared with European cases, mainly German railways.