The business world has undergone a series of sea changes in
recent decades. Remember the futurist speculation that was all
the rage forty years ago? Despite the flurry of prognostication,
no one foresaw the profound impact Japan would have, for a
time, on the American economy. For much of the 1980s,
Japan—a clutch of distant, overcrowded islands with no basic
resources, devastated by World War II and once renowned for
producing junk—caused America to have an economic identity
crisis. We began to question our vaunted know-how, our con-
viction that we are the most creative nation on earth—birth-
place of such practical geniuses as Edison and Ford—and our
claim to the most robust and successful business practices.
There were days when we felt that the Japanese did everything
better than we did, from designing appealing new automobiles
to finding new ways to guarantee quality. Japan soon bested us
in manufacturing and marketing what we used to think of as ba-
sic American goods, not just cars, but TV sets, even steel. It was
only a vicious recession in Japan, and the wholesale adoption of
the best Japanese practices by our own firms, that allowed us to
forget the sense we once had of being humiliated by Japanese
economic superiority.
In the twenty-first century it is impossible to predict where
the next great economic shift will come from. China, India,
Russia, even tiny but wealthy Dubai are emerging forces.
Most economists believe we are entering a period of slower
growth throughout the developed world. And what of the
Middle East? Americans are hopeful that our troops will leave
Iraq in the near future. But the whole world is nervously
watching Iran, a vocal enemy of Israel with nuclear ambitions.
The emergence of a particularly violent form of Islamic fun-
damentalism that uses modern technology to cause chaos in
Mastering the Context