As we slog into the third decade of the Lost Decade, the enigma of Japan is why, given dire developments, change and reform happen so slowly, if at all.
The process of transformation is fitful and incremental, zigzagging and backtracking while bypassing many eddies of continuity.
In this important new book, Walter Hatch offers an original and convincing explanation for some of this stasis, examining how regionalization strategies sustained Japan's model of capitalism well past its sell-by date.