European Power and the Japanese Challenge

America’s relationship with Japan recently passed its 140th anniversary. Over that period, hundreds of books and thousands of articles have explored different issues or periods of the relationship. Yet within that vast library, no book has analyzed the entire relationship from the beginning to the present. In Power Across the Pacific, William R. Nester fills this void, analyzing both the geopolitical phase of America’s relationship with Japan (1853-1945) and its geoeconomic phase, from 1945 to the present day. William R. Nester systematically untangles the interrelated perceptions, convergent and divergent national interests, and shifting power relations that have shaped relations between the two countries. Along the way he identifies the key foreign policy figures for both countries, revealing the ways in which domestic and international interests on both sides affected their interactions. Power Across the Pacific can serve both as a definitive study of the history of U.S.-Japanese relations, as well as a reference for particular periods within that history.