PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The subject of this study is population quality in Japan. It is my intention to make a strong case for population quality as a useful variable and one that can be effectively measured by height and weight and chest girth and body mass index for schoolchildren. I also hope to convince the reader that the secular improvement in population evident for Japan over the last several centuries is a result of improvements in net nutritional intake, that is, improvements in gross nutritional intake net of the nutrients burned up in combating disease and in fueling physical work effort. Finally, I hope to firmly establish that while technology and the shift away from agriculture and toward manufacturing matters a great deal to the improvement in net nutritional intake and hence to the enhancement of population quality, demand, as enunciated through the vehicle of political protest movements, also matters as well. Hence I ask the reader of this book to wear two hats, that of the statistician and that of the social historian.

This work arises from my stubborn conviction that enhancing population quality is a key ingredient to successful economic growth in our era. Telling the story for Japan, a country that perhaps better than any other exemplifies the capacity to rapidly industrialize and raise levels of income per capita despite severe natural resource constraints, will, I trust, make convincing the critical importance of population quality.

During the course of the research that underlies this account I have acquired numerous debts and obligations, too many to adequately ac-

knowledge here. However, I would like to single out my debts to three Japanese scholars who have greatly assisted me with my research on Japan's population over the last five years: Hiroshi Kawaguchi of Tezukayama University, Osamu Saito of Hitotsubashi University, and Yasukichi Yasuba of Osaka Gakuin University. In addition, I want to thank Isao Ohashi of Nagoya University for inviting me to spend three months in Nagoya during the spring and summer of 1994 as a visiting scholar and to the staff of the Economic Research Center at Nagoya University for assisting me in my research there. As a result of their invaluable assistance I was able to assemble a large amount of data on anthropometric measures for farmers and factory workers, some of which I discuss here. Seminar participants at talks I gave at Osaka Gakuin University, Ritsumeikan University, and Tezukayama University helped me clarify my thinking on a variety of issues concerning Japanese demographic history, and I am extremely thankful for the comments made by these individuals. My friend Yoshi-fumi Nakata of Doshisha University assisted me in arranging my trips to and within Japan and I am in debt to him for his efforts on my behalf.

At the University of Victoria I have benefited from the comments and criticisms of many colleagues, some made in seminars and some made in private conversation. I would like to offer special thanks here to Kenneth Avio, Judith Giles, David Giles, and Malcolm Rutherford in the Department of Economics; to Daniel Bryant in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies; and to Eric Roth in the Department of Anthropology. They have contributed to this volume, although in ways they may find surprising. And I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the very professional staff of the Department of Economics at the University of Victoria, especially Pattie Eccleston, Barbara Provan, and Priscilla Shiu. I also wish to express my thanks to Ole Heggen of the Geography Department staff for preparing the three maps and the figure. Finally I want to acknowledge the helpful comments of participants and panelists at a session of the 1994 annual meeting of the Social Science History Association which concerned historical trends in height and at which I presented an early version of some of the arguments advanced in chapter 2 of this work.

By way of closing out my acknowledgment of academic assistance, I would like to mention the great support and assistance of Eugene Hammel of the University of California, Berkeley, who has aided me in countless ways over the course of my academic life, with earlier projects as well as with this one.

The writing of a book places a strain on those one loves. I want to thank Kumiko for bearing with me when I was deeply involved in writing this manuscript and for encouraging me to "put on my thinking cap" and to "get to the point." I hope that she feels I have done so in this book. If she does, it will be my greatest reward.

This book is dedicated to my mother, Mary B. Hanley, and to the memory of my father, Sanford A. Mosk, who was a true gentleman and a scholar. He always emphasized the fact that a book must have a central thesis. I believe this work does have a central thesis and therefore fits his definition of a real book. But that is for the reader to judge.

Victoria, British Columbia