This is a gem. Warren Cohen has long been the leading historian of the relationship between the United States and East Asia. When such a scholar writes a spirited, delightful, and personalized account of American-Asian relations, it commands special attention. He shows convincingly how the histories of East Asia and the United States have become intertwined since the nineteenth century. The book argues, in essence, that the modern history of the world can never be fully understood unless we recognize this fact.
Akira Iriye, Harvard University Perceptive and witty, these provocative reflections consider what some Americans celebrate and some Americans fear and condemn, but what most Americans refuse to acknowledge: the "Asianization" of America. The cultures of the world are dramatically and quickly changing and Cohen offers a historian's long view of an East-West encounter that transcends immigration exclusion, atomic bombs, and economic boycotts: the changes in the everyday lives of everyday East Asians and Americans produced by their cultural contact.
Gordon H. Chang, Stanford University Warren Cohen is a master historian of US-East Asia relations. In these lectures he examines a new topic, the history of cultural relations between the United States and Asia. He traces how Americanization has swept Asia but he reveals that the United States has been more Asianized than one might guess from our "Western heritage."
Ezra F. Vogel, Harvard University