Book excerpt: This book explores the development of marketing, consumption and marketing thought in Japan during the twentieth century. It shows how Japan had a long established indigenous traditional approach to marketing, separate from Western approaches, and discusses how the Japanese approach to marketing was applied in the form of new marketing activities, responding to changing patterns of consumption, which contributed considerably to Japan's economic success. The book concludes with a discussion of how Japanese approach to marketing is likely to develop at a time when globalisation and international marketing are having an increasing impact in Japan.