This collection makes available key articles on the Japan-North American relationship from the Meiji era to the present. Volume one focuses on the necessity of Japanese modernization post-1868 and examines the build-up to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour. Volume two looks at the post-war period, in which US forces occupied Japan and were instrumental in its rebuilding as an economic superpower. In the years following this Japan and North America enjoyed a close yet occasionally fraught relationship, as competitors and allies. Volume two also examines the cultural ramifications of the influence of North America on Japan, and vice versa. Titles also available in this series include, Japan and South East Asia: International Relations (2001, 2 volumes, 295) and the forthcoming title Japanese Linguistics (2005, 3 volumes, c.425).

Ever since Commodore Perry sailed into Uraga Channel, relations between the United States and Japan have been characterized by culture shock. Now a distinguished Japanese historian critically analyzes contemporary thought, public opinion, and behavior in the two countries over the course of the twentieth century, offering a binational perspective on culture shock as it has affected their relations. In these essays, Sadao Asada examines the historical interaction between these two countries from 1890 to 2006, focusing on naval strategy, transpacific racism, and the atomic bomb controversy. For each topic, he offers a rigorous analysis of both American and Japanese perceptions, showing how cultural relations and the interchange of ideas have been complex--and occasionally destructive. Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations contains insightful essays on the influence of Alfred Mahan on the Japanese navy and on American images of Japan during the 1920s. Other essays consider the progressive breakdown of relations between the two countries and the origins of the Pacific War from the viewpoint of the Japanese navy, then tackle the ultimate shock of the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender, tracing changing perceptions of the decision to use the bomb on both sides of the Pacific over the course of sixty years. In discussing these subjects, Asada draws on Japanese sources largely inaccessible to Western scholars to provide a host of eye-opening insights for non-Japanese readers. After studying in America for nine years and receiving degrees from both Carleton College and Yale University, Asada returned to Japan to face his own reverse culture shock. His insights raise important questions of why people on opposite sides of the Pacific see things differently and adapt their perceptions to different purposes. This book marks a major effort toward reconstructing and understanding the conflicted course of Japanese-American relations during the first half of the twentieth century.

 During the first 10 months of the war in the Pacific, Japan achieved air supremacy with its carrier and land-based forces. But after major setbacks at Midway and Guadalcanal, the empire's expansion stalled, in part due to flaws in aircraft design, strategy and command. This book offers a fresh analysis of the air war in the Pacific during the early phases of World War II. Details are included from two expeditions conducted by the author that reveal the location of an American pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942 and clear up a controversial account involving famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James "Pug" Southerland.

A major work by one of Japan’s leading naval historians, this book traces Alfred Thayer Mahan’s influence on Japan’s rise as a sea power after the publication of his classic study, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. Hailed by the British Admiralty, Theodore Roosevelt, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, the international bestseller also was endorsed by the Japanese Naval Ministry, who took it as a clarion call to enhance their own sea power. That power, of course, was eventually used against the United States. Sadao Asada opens his book with a discussion of Mahan’s sea power doctrine and demonstrates how Mahan’s ideas led the Imperial Japanese Navy to view itself as a hypothetical enemy of the Americans. Drawing on previously unused Japanese records from the three naval conferences of the 1920s—the Washington Conference of 1921-22, the Geneva Conference of 1927, and the London Conference of 1930—the author examines the strategic dilemma facing the Japanese navy during the 1920s and 1930s against the background of advancing weapon technology and increasing doubt about the relevance of battleships. He also analyzes the decisions that led to war with the United States—namely, the 1936 withdrawal from naval treaties, the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, and the armed advance into south Indochina in July 1941—in the context of bureaucratic struggles between the army and navy to gain supremacy. He concludes that the ""ghost"" of Mahan hung over the Japanese naval leaders as they prepared for war against the United State and made decisions based on miscalculations about American and Japanese strengths and American intentions.

Mediating Nation: Late American Realism, Globalization, and the Progressive State

History of the daring voyage of explorer John Kendrick and Captain William Douglass to the forbidden waters of Japan in 1791. Resulted in the first contact between Americans and Japanese. Based on a recently discovered 225 year old ship's log.

Some will be shocked to find out that the United States and Ho Chi Minh, our nemesis for much of the Vietnam War, were once allies. Indeed, during the last year of World War II, American spies in Indochina found themselves working closely with Ho Chi Minh and other anti-colonial factions-compelled by circumstances to fight together against the Japanese. Dixee Bartholomew-Feis reveals how this relationship emerged and operated and how it impacted Vietnam's struggle for independence. The men of General William Donovan's newly-formed Office of Strategic Services closely collaborated with communist groups in both Europe and Asia against the Axis enemies. In Vietnam, this meant that OSS officers worked with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, whose ultimate aim was to rid the region of all imperialist powers, not just the Japanese. Ho, for his part, did whatever he could to encourage the OSS's negative view of the French, who were desperate to regain their colony. Revealing details not previously known about their covert operations, Bartholomew-Feis chronicles the exploits of these allies as they developed their network of informants, sabotaged the Japanese occupation's infrastructure, conducted guerrilla operations, and searched for downed American fliers and Allied POWs. Although the OSS did not bring Ho Chi Minh to power, Bartholomew-Feis shows that its apparent support for the Viet Minh played a significant symbolic role in helping them fill the power vacuum left in the wake of Japan's surrender. Her study also hints that, had America continued to champion the anti-colonials and their quest for independence, rather than caving in to the French, we might have been spared our long and very lethal war in Vietnam. Based partly on interviews with surviving OSS agents who served in Vietnam, Bartholomew-Feis's engaging narrative and compelling insights speak to the yearnings of an oppressed people-and remind us that history does indeed make strange bedfellows.