The Honda cram: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
Don Draper (Jon Hamm)
The agency wants Honda, so the partners cram. Time has the execs eating at Benihana and skim-reading Ruth Benedict before the pitch. Roger, who served in the Pacific, would rather not learn anything at all. Benihana opened its first New York restaurant in 1964, so this is a business strategy built on a book report and a hibachi grill.
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The book
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
Benedict wrote it at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information, and it came out in 1946. It made the split between guilt cultures and shame cultures famous. She never set foot in Japan to write it. She worked from interviews and wartime documents, which is still more prep than a Benihana dinner.
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Sleuthed by @shelfsleuth · 2026-10-22
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Paused Tuesdays
One still, one stack, every Tuesday morning.
Also in Mad Men
All 26 books
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Don's Israel homework: ExodusS1 E6
Bert's recommendation: Atlas ShruggedS1 E8
Don's bar find: Meditations in an EmergencyS2 E1
Peggy's mother and the library copy: The Agony and the EcstasyS2 E2
Betty and the Fitzgerald stories: Babylon Revisited and Other StoriesS2 E4
Joy's morning after: The Sound and the FuryS2 E11
Sally reads to Grandpa Gene: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireS3 E3
Lane at the hospital: The Adventures of Tom SawyerS3 E6
Roger on Ogilvy: Confessions of an Advertising ManS3 E7
Betty in the bath: The GroupS3 E10