Troubled Encounter: The United States and Japan

by Charles E. Neu

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882759515
• ISBN13: 9780882759517
• Release Date: June 1979
• Publisher: Krieger Pub Co
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent!

Neu's book traces the history of US/Japanese relations from the beginnings during the mid-19th Century. His exploration follows the forces working within each government, the overall East Asian contexts, the rapid emergence of Japan from a feudal island to an empire culminating in the WWII war in the Pacific. This includes the almost forgotten yellow-peril scares and anti-Japanese racism in California that did much to influence US policies during the early 20th Century. Japanese expansion into Siberia, Manchuria, Mongolia and China while the western powers were pre-occupied during WWI resulted in deep mistrust of them during the early post-war years. However, following the Washington Agreement the Japanese withdrew and settled into an era of peaceful expansion that ended in 1924, when the US reinforced the Gentleman's Agreement and adopted an immigration policy based on rabid racial feelings in California. This move restricted immigration by Japanese to the US to 274 per annum and repudiated racial equality. In Japan, the reaction was fierce. Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi was seriously injured by a right-wing assassin for his position in negotiations with the US. The beginnings of a new era began then.The book will leave the reader with a good comprehension of how the evolution of human affairs can lead to two flawed human societies preoccupied with nationalistic goals and concerns, shifting internal power structures and perceptions conditions of minimum 'required' conditions and security lead to armed confrontation and eventual destruction of Japan as a military power.I recommend this book to anyone interested in how East Asia came to be as it is, how the US, to some extent came to be as it is and how misunderstandings and failures to develop and communicate cohesive policy by leaders and diplomats on both sides of the pond caused a major war in the Pacific.