In the wastelands of post-war Tokyo, two men, Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, formed the company that was to become one of the greatest corporations of the 20th century. In this text, John Nathan tells the story of how a small family business became a multi-national with a turnover of billions, whose products are sold throughout the world. One of Sony's greatest early achievements was the Trinitron colour television - by 1998 180 million had been sold world wide. Over the years Sony took recording into the digital age with the compact disc, transformed the way music is listened to with the Walkman, and redrew the computer games market with the Playstation, among many other successes. Sony matched its revolutionary technology with revolutionary methods of marketing - it was one of the first corporations to embrace globalization. So began a dramatic clash of two cultures, one rooted in Japanese native tradition and the other irreconcilably western.

Sony: The Private Life

Business & Money

Nathan, John

Biography & History

Harpercollins

Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was the father of the modern novel in Japan, chronicling the plight of bourgeois characters caught between familiar modes of living and the onslaught of Western values and conventions. Yet even though generations of Japanese high school students have been expected to memorize passages from his novels and he is routinely voted the most important Japanese writer in national polls, he remains less familiar to Western readers than authors such as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and Mishima. In this biography, John Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of a great writer laboring to create a remarkably original oeuvre in spite of the physical and mental illness that plagued him all his life. He traces Sōseki’s complex and contradictory character, offering rigorous close readings of Sōseki’s groundbreaking experiments with narrative strategies, irony, and multiple points of view as well as recounting excruciating hospital stays and recurrent attacks of paranoid delusion. Drawing on previously untranslated letters and diaries, published reminiscences, and passages from Sōseki’s fiction, Nathan renders intimate scenes of the writer’s life and distills a portrait of a tormented yet unflaggingly original author. The first full-length study of Sōseki in fifty years, Nathan’s biography elevates Sōseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contemporaries, anticipated the modernism of the twentieth century.

Sōseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Columbia University Press

At forty-five, Yukio Mishima was the outstanding Japanese writer of his generation, celebrated both at home and abroad for The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. In 1970 he startled the world by stepping out onto a balcony in Tokyo before an assembly of troops and plunging a sword into his abdomen; a disciple then beheaded him, completing the ritual of hara-kiri. John Nathan's riveting biography traces the life of this tortured, nearly superhuman personality. Mishima survived a grotesque childhood, and subsequently his sadomasochistic impulses became manifest—as did an increasing obsession with death as the supreme beauty. Nathan, who knew Mishima professionally and personally, interviewed family, colleagues, and friends to unmask the various—often seemingly contradictory—personae of the genius who felt called by "a glittering destiny no ordinary man would be permitted."

Mishima: A biography

Hamish Hamilton

Mishima: A Biography

Da Capo Press

At forty-five, Yukio Mishima was the outstanding Japanese writer of his generation, celebrated both at home and abroad for The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. In 1970 he startled the world by stepping out onto a balcony in Tokyo before an assembly of troops and plunging a sword into his abdomen; a disciple then beheaded him, completing the ritual of hara-kiri. John Nathan's riveting biography traces the life of this tortured, nearly superhuman personality. Mishima survived a grotesque childhood, and subsequently his sadomasochistic impulses became manifestâ€”as did an increasing obsession with death as the supreme beauty. Nathan, who knew Mishima professionally and personally, interviewed family, colleagues, and friends to unmask the variousâ€”often seemingly contradictoryâ€”personae of the genius who felt called by "a glittering destiny no ordinary man would be permitted."

Mishima: a biography

Little,Brown

At forty-five, Yukio Mishima was the outstanding Japanese writer of his generation, celebrated both at home and abroad for The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. In 1970 he startled the world by stepping out onto a balcony in Tokyo before an assembly of troops and plunging a sword into his abdomen; a disciple then beheaded him, completing the ritual of hara-kiri. John Nathan's riveting biography traces the life of this tortured, nearly superhuman personality. Mishima survived a grotesque childhood, and subsequently his sadomasochistic impulses became manifest€”as did an increasing obsession with death as the supreme beauty. Nathan, who knew Mishima professionally and personally, interviewed family, colleagues, and friends to unmask the various€”often seemingly contradictory€”personae of the genius who felt called by "a glittering destiny no ordinary man would be permitted."

Olympic Marketing Corp

An expert on Japanese culture uses his access to Sony's archives to chart that company's fascinating rise from the ashes of post-war Tokyo to a major international distributor of electronics and mass culture

Houghton/Mifflin

Named one of the best business books of the year (by Fortune and Newsweek), SONY is the "intimate biography of one of the world's leading electronics giants" (San Francisco Chronicle) as well as one of the most fascinating and complex of all corporate stories. Drawing on his unmatched expertise in Japanese culture and on unique, unlimited access to Sony's inner sanctum, John Nathan traces Sony's evolution from its inauspicious beginnings amid Tokyo's bomb-scarred ruins to its current worldwide success. "Richly detailed and revealing" (Wall Street Journal), the book examines both the outward successes and, as never before, the mysterious inner workings that have always characterized this company's top ranks. The result is "a different kind of business book, showing how personal relationships shaped one of the century's great global corporations" (Fortune).

Sony: A Private Life

Mariner Books

Explores the cultural changes that have taken place in Japan throughout the last decade as demonstrated by various economic groups and institutions, predicting what Japan's changing world role will mean for the future.

Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose

History

Asia

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nathan, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nathan, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nathan, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sony: The Private Life

Sōseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)

Sōseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture)

Mishima: A biography

Mishima: A Biography

Mishima: a biography

Mishima: A Biography

Sony: The Private Life

Sony: A Private Life

Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose