Inconspicuous Consumption

Sake, Beer, and the Birth of the Consumer in Japan

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3608976
AutoresPenelope Francks (0000-0003-1014-7033, University of Leeds, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen68
Número1
Páginas135-164
Fecha de publicación2009-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0021911809000035
OpenAlexW2074784620
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas55

The growth of consumption and the emergence of the consumer have become major fields of study in the history of Europe and North America but have been largely neglected by historians of Japan, especially economic ones. This paper argues that, in Japan as elsewhere, the "birth of the consumer" predated the onset of industrialization-hence was not simply a function of the opening of the country to Western modernity-and that the growth of consumption, of "indigenous" as well as "foreign" goods, went on to represent an integral part of the process of economic development. This argument is illustrated by a case study of growth and change in the "ordinary consumption" of food and drink, and in particular of sake, a "traditional" product that emerged as a major consumer good, and of beer, the "foreign" product that was to become, alongside sake, one of the necessities of modern Japanese life

Argument (complex analysis) · Consumer demand · Consumption (sociology) · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Industrialisation · Market economy · Modernity · Political science · Product (mathematics) · Social science · Sociology · Japanese History and Culture · Law