This book is the product of many years’ research by Dr. Jeffrey W. Alexander, who is professor of Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. In it, Dr. Alexander reveals that Japan's experience of rapid postwar motorization holds important lessons for Asia today.  His book explores the development of Japan’s twentieth century motorcycle industry, which has been overlooked by Western scholarship almost entirely.  Dr. Alexander examines the industry's four successful firms as well as over a dozen of its failed companies and draws novel, often surprising conclusions about Japan’s industrial and economic growth during the transwar era.  His sources include his translations of interview transcripts, company histories, and other material that has until now been available only in Japanese. 

The many prewar subjects explored include: the introduction of the motorcycle to Japan in the early 1900s; the influence of motor sports on vehicle sales in the 1920s and 1930s; the efforts to police Japan’s chaotic city streets, and; the experiences of manufacturers in Japan’s prescribed wartime production regime.  In the postwar era, he examines the industry's explosive growth in the early 1950s, how private endurance races helped to cull the vast herd of over 200 domestic makers by the 1960s, and the later triumphs of the victors in brutally demanding international races.  Importantly, by exploring the industry as a whole, Dr. Alexander reveals that manufacturing in postwar Japan was characterized not by communitarian success, but by brutal competition, misplaced loyalties, broken promises, technical disasters, and outright fraud.  The sources reveal that for this industry’s entrepreneurs, technology was often too complex, innovation was too difficult, and poor business decisions were therefore made every day – leading to a 95 percent bankruptcy rate. 

Dr. Alexander also explores the role of Japan’s evolving road-development, driver-education, driver-licensing, and traffic-safety campaigns, which have curbed road injuries and fatalities remarkably since 1970.  As he makes clear, these efforts are of critical importance to twenty-first century South, East, and Southeast Asia, where consumers are stepping off of their bicycles and onto motorcycles in record numbers – and often with tragic results. 

English, 304 pages
35 B&W photographs, tables, charts, appendixes, index
Release dates: Hardcover, May 28, 2008; Softcover, January, 2009
ISBN-10: 0774814535
ISBN-13: 978-0774814539
Where to Buy
Bulk discounts available through UBC Press