A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan. By Timothy M. Yang. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021. Notes, references, index. Cloth, $54.95. 354 pp. ISBN: 978-1-5017-5624-5.

Abstract

A Medicated Empire is a delightful book about medicine and its relationship with busi-ness and politics as examined through the largest pharmaceutical company in prewar Japan, Hoshi Pharmaceuticals, and its colorful founder, Hoshi Hajime. The book adds a welcome new dimension to a recent corpus of scholarship on addictive drugs in Japan. Behind the “moral economy” (Miriam Kingsberg) and grotesque necropo litics (Mark Driscoll) of the Japanese empire and stimulant-addicted affluent Japan (Jeffrey Alexander) the pharmaceutical industry was there selling healing medicines and addictive drugs. 1 The modern pharmaceutical industry developed alongside new imperialism, market capitalism, mass media, and world wars. Timothy M. Yang does an outstanding job of placing Hoshi Pharmaceuticals in this larger, global context while detailing Japan-specific information about nation-state/empire building and competition over raw materials overseas. Importantly, he raises a fundamental issue concerning the Janus-faced nature of the pharmaceutical industry in a capitalist economy as the public good and profits alike.