The ambivalent consumer : questioning consumption in East Asia and the West / edited by Sheldon Garon and Patricia L. Maclachlan.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The evolution of the consumer : meanings, identities, and political synapses before the age of affluence / Frank Trentmann -- The consumers' republic : an American model for the world? / Lizabeth Cohen -- Consuming America, producing Japan / Shunya Yoshimi ; translated by David Buist -- The ambivalence of the new breed : nostalgic consumerism in 1980s and 1990s Japan / Jordan Sand -- Are the Japanese unique? : an analysis of consumption and saving behavior in Japan / Charles Yuji Horioka -- From singer to shinpan : consumer credit in modern Japan / Andrew Gordon -- The transnational promotion of saving in Asia : "Asian values" or the "Japanese model"? / Sheldon Garon -- South Korean consumer nationalism : women, children, credit, and other perils / Laura C. Nelson -- Consumption taxes and the welfare state in Sweden and Japan / Takatsugu Akaishi and Sven Steinmo -- Global trends vs. local traditions : genetically modified foods and contemporary consumerism in the United States, Japan, and Britain / Patricia L. Maclachlan -- Household debt and consumer education in postwar Japan / Takao Nishimura -- Urban Chinese homeowners as citizen-consumers / Deborah S. Davis.