Acknowledging no god but the corporate good, the shoshamen--high-powered professionals within Japan's integrated trading companies--serve as the unrelenting cogs of an economic machine. Or do they?

Shoshaman takes us inside the world of Japan Inc. to explore the daily lives of the people who inhabit it. Written by a senior executive in a major sogo shosha, this absorbing novel reveals, as no textbook can, the strategies required to win the race to the top. It also makes painfully clear the ethical and psychological choices that such a race demands. The cast of characters is as...