The definitive history of Honda Motors

The Honda Myth:

The Genius and his Wake

By Masaaki Sato

Translated by Hiroko Yoda with Matt Alt
Business Interest / Biography
Hardcover, 480 pages, 5.75 x 8.75 inches
978-1-932234-26-8 / 1-932234-26-8
U.S.$24.95 / CAN$32.95

Buy this book.

From the top Japanese auto-industry journalist comes this inimitably informed account of Honda Motor Company’s birth out the ashes of World War II and subsequent rise. Available in English for the first time, with a new chapter exclusive to this edition and prefaced by Paul Ingrassia, The Honda Myth is indispensable reading for industry insiders, business readers, and car enthusiasts.

Masaaki Sato simply has no peer when it comes to reporting on the Japanese auto industry, his prominence dating back to the 1980s when he was on the auto beat for Nikkei (the Japanese Wall Street Journal). Currently an executive at Nikkei Business Publications, he is the author of highly regarded histories, including one on the early days of home video technology (i.e. VHS vs. Betamax) that has been adapted to the big screen. His most recent book is The House of Toyota.

“Masaaki Sato’s career as a business journalist enabled him to see firsthand much of the evolution, struggles and fascinating men who built Honda, the youngest of the Japan’s automotive giants. Sato does a masterful job of weaving together the ambitions and conflicts between strong personalities of the Honda’s founders with the economic, industrial and political upheavals that tipped global automotive power in Japan’s favor and vaulted Honda into Japan’s Big Three despite the obstacles thrown in its way.”
—Maryann Keller

Read the Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Ingrassia.

Read the prologue.

See The Financial Times review