Anybody who is a dedicated Toyota driver and admirer of the Toyota Production System would be shocked to read of Ryoji Ihara?s experience as a casual worker in a Toyota factory, Japan. As the Toyota Motor Company continues on its inexorable march to become the world?s biggest and most profitable carmaker, workers on the factory floor are still making sacrifices under the appalling conditions so graphically described here. Ihara?s book is both a fearless expos? and a meticulous academic study firmly situated within the context of the sociology of labor.