In a timely, even prophetic, portrait of Asia's rise and the magnitude of its challenge to the West, Fallows demolishes the myth that Japan is a capitalist country built on the Western model. He demonstrates instead how Japan's economic system treats business as an instrument of national interest while casting aside the traditional Western values of individual enterprise and human rights.

James Fallows is an American print and radio journalist who has been associated with The Atlantic Monthly for many years and has written eight books. His work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, and other magazines. He was also one of Nader's Raiders at Public Citizen and Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for the first two years of his presidency.