Search

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the natural monopoly features of infrastructure industries, together with their strategic roles, have been important elements in state intervention. The aim of this paper is to evaluate what relative weight was attached to market failure problems on the one hand and geo-political factors on the other. For the period 1830-1939, how far were geo-political factors stronger than natural monopoly problems in accounting for the scale of intervention in the various countries of the Western World? How far did the policy instruments for security and market failure overlap? Whilst most of the infrastructure sectors are covered - including internal telecommunications, coal, gas, shipping, electricity and water - special attention is devoted to international submarine telegraph tables and railways. The paper concludes by demonstrating strong differences between Britain and USA on the one hand and Continental Europe plus Japan on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tadao Yanaihara was the most prominent intellectual in pre-war Japan who worked on the study of empire and colonial policy and he seems increasingly to attract a large part of the scholarly attention in English and Japanese literatures on pre-war colonial policy studies in Japan. However, more attention should be paid to figures who belonged to preceding generations such as Shimpei Goto and Inazo Nitobe, because they played significant roles in the early establishment of colonial policy studies in Japan, to which public health and agricultural administration could be considered as central. The interactions between these figures, especially between Goto and Nitobe and between Nitobe and Yanaihara, are important factors in understanding pre-war Japanese colonial policy studies. In addition, a comparison with Britain and an examination of inter-imperial relations between Britain and Japan (particularly the influence of the former on the latter) will help enhance our understanding about characteristics of colonial policy studies in pre-war Japan. This article attempts to advance such understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper attempts to bring new insights to a long-standing historical debate over medical specialization by analyzing the formation of medical mycology, a somewhat marginal biomedical discipline that emerged in the mid-twentieth century around studies of fungal disease in humans. The study of fungi predates that of bacteria and viruses, but from the 1880s it became eclipsed by bacteriology. However, in the postwar period, there were moves to establish medical mycology as an independent speciality. I trace the processes that led to the launch of professional societies in the United States, Britain and Japan, three major players in medical mycology, and more broadly in biomedicine. The analysis of the three different national contexts illustrates how geographical, medico-technological, epidemiological, political and social conditions gave the specialty a distinctive character in each country; this was further complicated by the different and changing medical fields in which fungal diseases were studied and treated. The three case studies show medical specialization as a process that is not simply cumulative but responds to specific historical events and developments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a comparative assessment of the nature and impact of urban containment policies in three countries, through examination of strategic plans for six case-study cities. Recent development patterns and current planning policies are mapped and assessed, and compared to a conceptual model of strategic options for urban containment. Emphasis is on rationales for containment, locational attributes of areas where development is encouraged or curtailed, the overall supply of developable land, and policies relating to development densities. The case studies demonstrate more stringent control on the location, timing, and density of development in Britain and Japan, with shorter time horizons and tighter development boundaries than in Canada. The Canadian cities, however, are moving towards higher densities, to enable transit-oriented development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper we examine the ecological relations between household income distribution and age-grouped mortality in Britain and Japan. Comparable datasets were prepared in terms of age intervals of mortality, household income intervals and geographical units for years around 1990. Then we conducted a series of regression analyses to associate absolute and relative income indices with age and sex-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs). The results are as follows: (1) In Britain mortality is lower where inequalities in income are lower, while in Japan there is no obvious relationship. It is, however, apparent that -- just as in the case of the USA and Canada -- Britain and Japan appear to merge and appear part of a greater pattern when considered as a series of city regions. Thus an overall global relationship between income inequality and mortality may exist. To assess such global relationship, further studies using cross-national regional datasets covering a wide rage of rich nations are desirable. (2) Income-mortality relations are consistent among different age-sex groups in Britain, but there are substantial differences in the relationships as revealed between different demographic groups in Japan. In particular, while absolute income levels are correlated negatively with mortality of working-age men in both countries, mortality of elderly people in Japan is higher where absolute income is higher. This indicates the different historical contexts to the health divides these two different geographical contexts, but further consideration of a more historically nuanced understanding of income-mortality relations is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines British propaganda efforts in post-war Japan, focusing on the scope of activities and limitations of the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). Although the IRD built a wide network of recipients for its anti-communist material in Japan, it soon faced difficulties in conducting operations when the British embassy officials started to question its influence in Japanese society – since they believed it was a culture so unique that pro forma IRD materials were unsuitable. Assessing the tensions between London and Tokyo contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the seemingly monolithic propaganda policies of the IRD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows the evolution of biopharmaceutical firms as they bore great uncertainty and risks in their endeavours to commercialise new therapies – through the regenerative medicine industry in the United States, Britain and Japan. Despite its beginnings in the 1970s, regenerative medicines have yet to become a widely accepted form of medicine. A large part of the problem lay with the lack of 'fit' with the broader health context. This article illustrates how the trajectory of the sector was shaped, not only by the nature of the technology, but also by the complex contexts in which firms were embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early post-war era, a Japanese revival was a source of profound concern to members of the Commonwealth, especially Australia and New Zealand. Britain, having abdicated the leading role in the Western Pacific to the United States, attempted to retain some influence in the region, but economic frailties and lack of Commonwealth unity undermined these efforts. Under American guidance, diplomatic, commercial and (to a lesser extent) security ties with Japan were later promoted, but elements of cooperation and competition persisted in Commonwealth relations with their former enemy. Ultimately, Britain, Australia and New Zealand placed their respective regional identities ahead of their Commonwealth loyalties. Japan took advantage of this situation to promote its own national interests. Hence, the wider aperture of the 'Commonwealth lens' throws into sharp relief the contours of a number of members' bilateral relationships with Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the introduction of native Japanese plants to Great Britain, focusing particularly on the introductions of Aucuba japonica and Larix leptolepis during the nineteenth century. It considers the exchange of horticultural knowledge and the traditional medicinal use of plants between botanists and doctors in China, Japan, and Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The authors assert that plant introductions go through three phases, they are first introduced as exotic plants, then become culturally assimilated after proving adaptable and hardy in their new environment, finally they become subjects of hybridisation, such as the creation of Larix eurolepis from Larix leptolepis and the European larch.