They invented it, didn't they?
I am referring to concrete, that ubiquitous, seemingly innocuous, cold, hard and gray building material that, according to a book published here recently, threatens to take over the world -- or at least this far eastern corner of it.
The book, Alex Kerr's "Dogs and Demons -- The Fall of Modern Japan," reads like a Stephen King novel with lashings of statistics that compound the horror of the story.