Compare And Contrast American And Japanese Industrialism

Britain and Japan are the two great pioneers of industrialism and therefore of the modern world. Britain was the pioneer industrial nation of the Western, European-dominated world, Japan of the Eastern, non-European and, to many eyes, the hope of the Third World. The countries have always had much in common. Both groups of islands off an initially more civilized and powerful continent, they had to defend themselves from military and cultural conquest and to that end developed a powerful navy and an independence of mind which made them increasingly different from their continental neighbours. Behind their sea defences they were able to pursue their own ideals and ambitions which enabled them in the end to originate changes in industry and society