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How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation
Nan A. Talese
September 2006
On Sale: September 19, 2006
352 pages
ISBN: 0385513038
EAN: 9780385513036
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The world’s second-wealthiest country, Japan once seemed
poised to overtake America. But its failure to recover from
the economic collapse of the early 1990s was unprecedented,
and today it confronts an array of disturbing social trends.
Japan has the highest suicide rate and lowest birthrate of
all industrialized countries, and a rising incidence of
untreated cases of depression. Equally as troubling are the
more than one million young men who shut themselves in their
rooms, withdrawing from society, and the growing numbers of
“parasite singles,” the name given to single women who
refuse to leave home, marry, or bear children. In Shutting Out the Sun, Michael Zielenziger argues that
Japan’s rigid, tradition-steeped society, its aversion to
change, and its distrust of individuality and the expression
of self are stifling economic revival, political reform, and
social evolution. Giving a human face to the country’s
malaise, Zielenziger explains how these constraints have
driven intelligent, creative young men to become modern-day
hermits. At the same time, young women, better educated than
their mothers and earning high salaries, are rejecting the
traditional path to marriage and motherhood, preferring to
spend their money on luxury goods and travel. Smart, unconventional, and politically controversial,
Shutting Out the Sun is a bold explanation of Japan’s
stagnation and its implications for the rest of the world.
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