Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine

In this involving tale, Schlesinger, a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Tokyo from 1989 to 1994, makes the power plays inside Japan's government over the past 35 years so accessible that they will seem as familiar to American readers as their local politics. He offers humanizing biographies of the four figures who built and ran the country's powerful and corruptible political machine from 1970 onward, fueling the bubble boom of the '80s, then deliberately bursting it. Premier Kakuei Tanaka, the dominant force in his country's politics for more than a decade, rose to power with a populist appeal but with the support of the old ruling elite. He initiated liberalizing reforms and undertook vast public works that spurred the rise of the middle class while vastly profiting business cronies and, not least, himself. Brought down by these scandals, his successors--Shin Kanemaru, Noboru Takeshita and Ichiro Ozawa--tutored by the master, carried on until the excesses stirred popular discontent and Ozawa took steps to end them, deflating the overvalued stock market and causing Japan's recent depression. This is an exceptionally lucid and gripping report on machine politics Eastern style. (May)