In Japanese, the word for "foreign country" means "outnation." But to many Americans and Japanese, it is Japan itself, despite its increasing influence in world affairs, that is the outsider-the outnation: a country, as some have said, in the world but not of it.

How different is this industrial superpower? Why did its fast climb to the pinnacle of the global economy also contain the causes of its subsequent fall? And what can we all-Americans and Japanese alike-learn from the Japanese model?

In this rigorous, searching, deeply personal journey through Japan's islands and institutions, Jonathan Rauch reveals how different the country really is-and how hauntingly, sometimes eerily, familiar. In 200 numbered, lyrical paragraphs, The Outnation takes readers through Tokyo's nighttime crowds and into quiet country hamlets, to the office of a high-tech industrialist and to a farmer's dinner table. He distills conversations with dozens of Japanese, statesmen and professors as well as sushi chefs and innkeepers. He probes the public values of the Japanese and details the inner workings of their political, economic, and intellectual systems.

Now an acknowledged classic, republished with a new foreword by Dreux Richard, The Outnation is a perceptive and honest exploration of Japan and its people-and a sometimes disconcerting mirror that reflects America in a fresh light.