"This book covers the history of Japan from the mid-nineteenth century up to the present day. It charts the spectacular rise of Japan - a society which leapt in little more than a generation from late feudal to early industrial forms of organisation - an exceptionally disturbing experience for the Japanese as they left left behind the traditional and Asian and moved toward the modern and Western. " "It examines the turbulent thirties and an Empire won and lost between 1937 and 1945, and investigates the major changes after 1945 including the astonishing economic growth that has been achieved since the 1950s. This new edition covers the dramatic political upheavals of the 1990s. "--BOOK JACKET.