The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations [Hardcover]

Walter Lafeber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

How two economies with divergent political orientations have competed -- and often collided -- with each other.

When Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo harbor in July 1853, opening Japan to the West, Americans and Japanese immediately began to misunderstand each other. This relationship between the United States and Japan -- now the world's two greatest economic powers and fierce competitors -- remains immensely important, highly fragile, and little understood on either side of the Pacific.

Walter LaFeber, one of America's greatest historians, has written the first book to tell the entire story. Using both American and Japanese sources, LaFeber focuses on two central themes: the role of China which, ghostlike, has always haunted and shaped U.S.-Japanese policies, and the nature of the two capitalisms that have constantly clashed since the late nineteenth century and that led, in 1941, to Pearl Harbor and, after 1945, to today's long-term economic war.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A noted historian with eight books to his credit considers how we have been competing with Japan ever since our two countries got acquainted.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A scholar's perceptive rundown on the contentiousness that has defined America's relations with Japan down through the years. Drawing on archival and other sources, LaFeber (The American Age, 1988, etc.) offers an even-handed account of the deep-rooted conflicts that have kept the two nations at odds right from the start, i.e., the mid-1853 moment when Commodore Perry swept into Yedo Bay with a letter from President Millard Fillmore inviting the emperor of Japan to open his insular, feudal country (which then traded only with the Chinese and Dutch) to the US. He goes on to document the consistent way in which Washington has viewed Asia as a frontier that must remain open to trade while Tokyo (with an eye to retaining control over its foreign policy and, hence, domestic order) was ever intent on barring offshore capital and goods from home markets. At critical junctures, notes the author (History/Cornell Univ.), the focus of the resulting commercial conflicts has been mainland China; cases in point range from the preWW I era (when the Meiji Restoration brought Japan into the industrial age) through WW I and into the 1970s, when Japan emerged as an economic force. LaFeber also records how cultural divergences, in particular, vastly different approaches to governance, competition, and capitalism, have created constant friction over time. Closer to the present, he reviews how the Cold War's abrupt end reduced Japan's value to the US as a strategic partner in the struggle against communism, albeit without resolving many of the seemingly intractable disputes that have long kept the two rivals for Pacific Basin riches at loggerheads. A ready one-volume reference to a protracted confrontation that has consequential implications for the whole of the Global Village. (photos, maps, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 508 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393039501
• ISBN-13: 978-0393039504
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,370,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Curious Friendship, June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations (Hardcover)

Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, Prof. LaFeber offers the finest single-volume history of U.S.-Japanese relations to appear in recent years. Taking as his starting point the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in Edo Bay in 1853, Prof. Lafeber explains the close -- and occasionally stormy -- relationship between the United States and Japan over the past 150 years. Although the interests of the two nations are often aligned, Prof. LaFeber suggests that this alignment is not inevitable. Instead, the continued friendship between the two nations relies upon an understanding of our shared history -- and an appreciation of China's place in that history. Only by studying the history of the U.S.-Japan-China triangle can U.S. foreign policymakers formulate a comprehensive strategy for the Pacific in the 21st century. "The Clash" is an absolute must-read for those who wish to participate in the debate over U.S. interests in the Pacific.