We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs And The Forging Of The Electronic Age

Freelance journalist Bob Johnstone shatters the stereotypes of Japanese entrepreneurs as uncreative copycats and reveals the spirit, competitive zeal, and perfectionism that drive high-tech companies like Sony, Sharp, and Canon. "It is hard to imagine such faceless drones as brave risk takers, betting their companies on some new and unproven technology," Johnstone writes about the Japanese in We Were Burning.

The book documents how Japan launched the revolution in consumer electronics--often by seizing on technology initially developed in the U.S. and vastly improving it. For instance, it was an American company, RCA, that announced the creation of liquid crystal displays (LCD) in New York in 1968. Another American giant, Hewlett-Packard, pursued the technology and then abandoned it out of frustration by 1980. But Japan's Seiko and Sharp persisted in the development of LCDs: the devices now are now found in everything from watches to calculators and laptops to flat-screen TVs. The book profiles people like Sharp's Sasaki Tadashi, nicknamed "Doctor Rocket" for his boundless energy, and companies like Seiko, which began more than 100 years ago as a maker of clocks and watches. It also offers some insights about the future of such technologies as digital photography. At the same time, We Were Burning provides a historical and cultural context for Japan's incredible technological achievements. The book contains some valuable lessons for U.S. business managers. It's also worthwhile reading for people interested in the technology underpinning modern machines, including compact-disc players, laser printers, and multimedia computers. Johnstone, who has written for New Scientist and Wired and been a journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is convinced that the entrepreneurial spirit of the Japanese people will pull the country back from any economic mess. "In the past, the Japanese have repeatedly demonstrated their resilience-- especially when their backs are against the wall." --Dan Ring