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Japanese social order emphasizes a superior's responsibility for their subordinates' well-being. This traditional "right to benevolence" is a wellspring of hope for workers. This paper describes how, in the wake of changes in employment practices since the mid-1970s, citizens' groups and labor lawyers creatively combined advances in medicine and legal knowledge with this right to benevolence in lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries caused by overwork. The social movement against karōshi (death due to overwork) that arose from these suits first sought workers' compensation system reforms. Later, they won legislative remedies. Rulings in Japanese courts, including the Supreme Court, affirmed employers' legal responsibility for worker well-being to include care for accumulated fatigue and mental health. Buoyed by these successes, activists and victims' families hopes of preventing karoshi reached new heights with the June 2014 passage of the Karoshi Prevention Countermeasures Promotion Law (Karōshi tō bōshi taisaku suishin-hō). Karoshi compensation victories, administrative rule changes, and legislative reforms raised public awareness of overwork and exploitative management practices. Nevertheless, we must conclude that, although karoshi legislation gives hope for a legal regime of employee care rights, the current law is weak and remediation only addresses the worst cases. Moreover, participation in the legislative process risks limiting the movement's future influence.

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This article explores the relationship between Japanese workers’ persistent inner-worldly asceticism and today’s globalizing economy. The interplay of values and corporate cultural practices, global market forces and individual health outcomes is illustrated in the case of an Osaka stockbroker killed by overwork (karôshi) during the 1990 Gulf War and resultant collapse of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’. The analysis centres on corporate documents and events which publicly valorized the broker as the embodiment of the ideal employee. The tradition of discipline, dedication and deference that he came to symbolize interacted with inequalities in the global division of labour to produce tragic consequences for him and his family. Viewed through historical, micro and macro lenses, the negative potential of such ascetic work ethics comes into focus. But the analysis also shows how such cases become catalysts for social movements that emphasize the value of care.

One of the overriding themes in this book is how the adolescents were engaged in "disrupting difference." First, not only did constructed gender differences exist between girls and boys, but they were also evident between boys and between girls and were dependent on the social setting. Instead of separately examining boys and girls, Messerschmidt examines their embodied masculine and feminine practices in the context of one another to show their similarities and differences. Second, his research also breaks down the sex-gender binary. Through life-history interviews, he is able to show how the gendered practices of his subjects do not always follow their "sex." For example, both of the girls in his study engaged in behaviors that would typically be classified as masculine practices.While this book provides an excellent account of the construction of gender through violence, it is limited by its small sample size and the fact that all of the youth are White. Even so, Flesh and Blood provides us with a glimpse into the embodied experiences of adolescents who are routinely involved in violent acts. I would recommend this book to researchers in criminology, gender studies, and masculinities. As in his previous work, Messerschmidt is able to show how studies of crime and violence can be enhanced by using a gendered analysis. Additionally, this book would make a great contribution to a graduate course on crime and gender. While the entire book may be daunting for undergraduates, I would encourage assigning the latter chapters as a way to illustrate the connections between gender and violence.