Once teams of hard-working Japanese salesmen had prised open American and European markets in the 1970s, Western consumers were quickly won over by Japanese quality, design and price, whether in fuel-efficient cars or snazzy electronic gizmos, such as the Sony Walkman (for readers under 30: a portable machine that played music from tapes) or the Nintendo DS (for readers over 30: a gadget for playing video games).
ECONOMIST: Schumpeter