The decades of Western adulation for the Japanese "economic miracle" failed to notice a key point - that in pursuit of this miracle, the Japanese had turned their country into a concrete shambles. This book describes the dazzling nature of Japanese culture and its ruination.

Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector and Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.