CJS Special Lecture: Six Decades of Japan Social Science

In this special lecture, Professor Vogel reflects on his long and distinguished career in Japan studies, China studies, and the policy world and discusses the current state and future of social science research on Japan and broader East Asia. The discussion starts with pioneering studies in Okayama through his classic/bestseller ""Japan as Number One"" to recent scholarship on Japanese education, market, politics, and demography.

Ezra F. Vogel has been a professor at Harvard University since 1967 and is currently Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus. He has served as director of Harvard's Fairbank Center (1972-1976, 1995-1999), of the US-Japan Program (1980-1987) and of Harvard's undergraduate program in East Asia Studies (1972-1989); he was the founding director of the Asia Center (1997-1999).  He has authored books on China and Japan, including Japan’s New Middle Class, Canton Under Communism, Japan as Number One:  Lessons for America, One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong Under Reform, Is Japan Still Number One?, and Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.  He lectures frequently in Asia in Chinese and Japanese. Vogel was National Intelligence Officer for East Asia in Washington, D. C. in 1993-1995, director of the American Assembly on China in 1997, and co-director of the Asia Foundation Task Force on Asian Policy in 2000.