McKinsey & Company: “Although we began work on Reimagining Japan long before the earthquake hit, the issues the book addresses are no less relevant in its aftermath. When it comes to the forces of nature, all any country can do is try to anticipate and then to react intelligently. The same is true of man-made forces, and it is these that are at the heart of this volume. Among them: the rise of China; Japan’s aging, shrinking population; a stagnating economy; an increasingly inward-looking orientation; and a turbulent, ineffectual political order. These are among the factors that have led many observers to predict an era of inevitable decline and second-tier status for Japan. Japan’s long-term decline is a sobering thought—and one that would not have occurred to anyone only a generation ago. Yet this destiny is not the only one available to Japan. The country’s business, government, and social leaders can take practical steps that would allow Japan to forge a very different future. That will be a daunting task, as the essays in this volume make clear. Still, it is far from an impossible one.”