Bio & Works

Jeffrey W Alexander is a Japan specialist and historian who received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His books and articles explore the adoption, manufacture, and sale of Western consumer products in Japan, including motor vehicles, alcohol, and stimulant drugs. He has lived and worked throughout Japan off and on since 1995, including in Osaka, Kyoto, Okazaki, and Tokyo. In the mid 1990s, he worked as a bartender in a live jazz club in Toyonaka City, where the owner was generous and the cocktails were made the old fashioned way.

Jeffrey's newest book explores Japan's markets for whisky, beer, hangover pills, and methamphetamine. He explains how Japan adopted alcohol but came to demonize stimulants.

The Japanese have been brewing beer since the late nineteenth century, and by the 1960s it came to be known as the 'beverage of the masses.' This book explores Japan's love affair with beer.

Japan was home to over 200 motorcycle manufacturing companies in the early 1950s, but today there are only 4 remaining. This book reveals how 95% of their rivals were driven out of business.