I had to bring the car to the shop for some time-consuming repairs, but at least that let me go out for a nice run and listen to books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was "Precarious Japan" by Anne Allison. Here Allison puts forward the theory that since the collapse of the property bubble Japan has become mired in economic and social precarity, using anecdotes from her experiences in Japan and a small number of interviews to make the case. Unfortunately this methodology is ill-suited to investigating this issue, and macro quantitative data is very rarely deployed here. Much of the analysis is rooted in long discredited economic and social theories, and the strange animosity towards nuclear power distracts from the main thrust of the book. Also here's a protip for aspiring theorists: don't analyze the movie "Battle Royale" as a serious work of cinema https://dukeupress.edu/precarious-japan

Next was "Labor's Time" by Jonathan Cutler. This book zooms in on one of the UAW's most important decades, focusing on the internal jockeying to focus union demands on a 30 hour work week in the 1950s. Cutler shows the important influence of the US political environment, the Communist party, and most crucially how self-interested nature of union leaders on both sides of the issue ultimately doomed this push. It reads as a lost opportunity when unions were arguably at the height of their power, although there's not quite enough of a broader perspective to understand the connections between this UAW infighting and US labor more broadly. Highly recommend https://tupress.temple.edu/books/labor-s-time

Last was "America's Main Street Hotels" by John Jakle and Keith Sculle. This is a great dive into the history and business of the small to medium sized hotels that exploded across towns in the US with the advent of the car and subsequently faded as interstates and chains took center stage in the post-WW2 years. The authors work through every aspect of the hotel business, starting at funding and design to staff training and marketing operations. There's also some coverage of the social effects of the industry. I wish the analysis were just a bit more rigorous, but this book does a good job combining illustrative cases with quantitative industry data. Highly recommend https://www.audible.com/pd/Americas-Main-Street-Hotels-Audiobook/B082FSDTLZ