The House of Mitsui

This volume contains a detailed history of the Mitsui family, one of the most powerful families in Japan, whose ancestry goes back centuries & is closely coupled with the rise of Japan to the position of a political & military power."To set forth how the Mitsuis achieved that position is the purpose of this book. It has been said, frequently, that the economic history of Japan is the history of the Mitsuis. It is true, insomuch as these facts are borne in mind: that there was only the beginning of a crude commerce in Japan when the Mitsuis entered trade and that from early in the Seventeenth Century the Mitsuis have been in the vanguard of nearly every important commercial and financial development of the Island Empire until the present day. The Mitsuis had opened their bank in Tokyo before the Bank of England was founded, and the Mitsuis had a profit-sharing scheme for their employees when industrialism was at its worst in England.The story of the Mitsuis is not only the story of the family but the story of some of the remarkable men of Japan who have made Mitsui. In all the eleven generations of Mitsuis since the business house was founded, there have been few great Mitsuis, but some of the great men of Japan have had a hand in expanding the fortunes of the family. Mitsui history is so inextricably interwoven with the economic development of Japan that a broad canvas is necessary to depict it in full. Certain business innovations of the Mitsuis, familiar enough in form to Western conception, cannot be fully appreciated unless the contemporary Eastern disparity is shown. With that in mind, the author has drawn somewhat fully upon the commercial history of the empire."—From the Introduction Read more