You are cordially invited to the next DIJ Forum:

Thursday, 05 July 2012, 18.30 h
Sheldon Garon, Princeton University
Beyond our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves

If the 2008 financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that Americans save too little, spend too much, and borrow excessively. What can Americans learn from Japan and European countries which have fostered cultures of saving and more balanced approaches to consumption and credit? Sheldon Garon's new book, Beyond Our Means, tells how other nations shaped savings habits by means of special savings institutions and moral suasion campaigns. He traces the development of savings and spending behaviors across three continents from 1800 to today. Transnational history at its most compelling, Beyond Our Means reveals why some nations save so much and others so little. Garon’s book has attracted media attention from the New York Times, NPR, BBC, Foreign Policy, Financial Times Deutschland, the Asahi Shinbun, and many others.

Sheldon Garon is Nissan Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University. A specialist in modern Japanese history, he also writes transnational history that spotlights the flow of ideas and institutions among the U.S., Japan, and European and Asian countries. In addition to Beyond Our Means, his publications include The State and Labor in Modern Japan (1987), Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (1997); and the co-edited volume, The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (2006).

The lecture will be given in English. It will take place on Thursday, July 05, 2012 at 6.30 p.m. at the DIJ. Admission is free, please register at:
forum[at]dijtokyo.org or
Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien - German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Jochi Kioizaka Bld. 2F, 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
102-0094
Tel: 03 - 3222 5198, Fax: 03 3222 5420