The Historical Consumer: Consumption and Everyday Life in Japan, 1850–2000

Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Introduction: Japan’s Consumption History in Comparative Perspective....Pages 1-23
Front Matter....Pages 25-25
The Role of Housework in Everyday Life: Another Aspect of Consumption in Modern Japan....Pages 27-55
Like Bamboo Shoots after the Rain: The Growth of a Nation of Dressmakers and Consumers....Pages 56-78
Building up Steam as Consumers: Women, Rice Cookers and the Consumption of Everyday Household Goods in Japan....Pages 79-104
Front Matter....Pages 105-105
Japanese Modernisation and the Changing Everyday Life of the Consumer: Evidence from Household Accounts....Pages 107-126
Sweetness and Empire: Sugar Consumption in Imperial Japan....Pages 127-150
Kimono Fashion: The Consumer and the Growth of the Textile Industry in Pre-War Japan....Pages 151-175
Reviving Tradition: Patients and the Shaping of Japan’s Traditional Medicines Industry....Pages 176-203
Front Matter....Pages 205-205
Getting on a Train: Railway Passengers and the Growth of Train Travel in Meiji Japan....Pages 207-234
People and Post Offices: Consumption and Postal Services in Japan from the 1870s to the 1970s....Pages 235-258
Mail-Order Retailing in Pre-War Japan: A Pathway of Consumption Before the Emergence of the Mass Market....Pages 259-283
From Corporate Playground to Family Resort: Golf as Commodity in Post-War Japan....Pages 284-305
History and the Study of Consumerism: A Historian of the West Looks to Japan....Pages 306-324
Back Matter....Pages 325-329