Japan is known throughout the world for its economic successes, yet Japanese society remains an enigma to many outside its borders. Those people who stress the nation's uniqueness, including many Japanese, often overlook the common human traits that make crosscultural communication possible and rewarding. Those who stress Japan's convergence with the West miss the deeper differences that have allowed Japan to chart its own path through the unknowns of the postindustrial time.

Japan, with the world's second largest gross national product and seventh largest population, played an increasingly valuable part in world affairs. As the government embarked on a policy of internationalization, individual Japanese creatively combined elements from their own history with foreign determines and new inventions as they adapted to the postindustrial world.