Japanese American Books

This was the best book I have ever read! Loved it. . .loved it. . .loved it!

In just 30 minutes a boy's life would change forever! My story takes place in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during World War 2. The main characters are Frank, who is 11 and Kenji who is 11. Frank and Kenji both like baseball and reading. My book starts with 2 friends just meeting. Frank is American and Kenji is Japanese. The problem of this tale is that Pearl Harbor gets bombed. The Americans couldn't do anything. My favorite part is when they play baseball. I give this book 4 stars. I liked this book because it had a lot of detail. I think you should read it.

If the goal was to bore you to sleep the writer did a very good job. The writing style was terrible; boring, condescending, and almost comical in its psuedo-sadness. Even during the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was monotonous and repetitive. The story line is undeveloped; the book reads more like a first draft than a final one. The conclusion was predictable; even though the book was a let down, the ending was even more so. This book might have been good with some work; as it was, it stank.

My son is reading PEARL HARBOR IS BURNING, which is short not only on the mood and atmosphere of the time but also on facts. One child dons a "Baltimore Orioles" jacket even though the baseball team didn't move to Baltimore until the 1950's.

The book should focus on the events of Pearl Harbor,not on the story of racial tensions,which is grafted on. That's an important theme, but it doesn't belong here.

The story takes place in Hawaii, where two boys from very different backgrounds become friends during the strike on Pearl Harbor. This short story is a very good read. My only complaint is that the story ends too soon. The author took time to develop characters but ended the story. It really makes you want to know more about what happens to them in the aftermath of the attack. This book would be a great choice for teachers to read in their classrooms in light of recent events.

Praise you see for this book in reviews reflects the reverence people have for the subject matter and not the writing. If they were, in fact, addressing the author and her style, you'd see more words like "trite," "superficial" and "untalented." I had to check the "About the Author" section multiple times, just to make sure I wasn't being forced to read the self-published manuscript of a graduate student.

For everyone who read The Jungle and towards the end grew exasperated by unnecessary twist after unfeasible twist, this book will seem familiar. At least Sinclair had an excuse--he was writing a weekly feature in a newspaper. Revoyr, on the otherhand, has not justification for what can only be describe as mediocre writing. Okay, the main character is both a law student, a lesbian, asian, in a faltering relationship, estranged from her parents, her grandfather died, and she's investigating the 50 year old murders of 4 black teenagers. Her grandfather was the only asian in La who liked black people, and he was sent to an internment camp, and he served in WWII, and his store was torched twice by rioters, and he was an email aficionado in 1994. Are you serious? That's only to two characters--let us not forget her bisexual, biracial friend, her aunt who rejects the institution of marriage, the man who Jesus told to pick up bowling, a boy's father who killed 8 of his comrades in Korea without repercussion, and score of other entirely other implausible characters.

This book is a joke--and that is sad considering what a serious topic it is. I literally cringed with the turning of each new page, fearful of the lunacy I knew awaited me. It's like Revoyr threw in every possible cliched, and extreme character trait she could think of, and then an editor told her "why not shoot for the moon and make them all gay?"

And of course, it is all epitomized by the cover. It's a photograph of an old store front, with the title photoshopped in from WordArt. Like everything else in this book, we find big plans and little effort with a grand finale of poor results.

I agree with a prior reviewer- perhaps this book speaks most poignantly to those Angelinos who can know and feel the reality of Los Angeles depicted in its pages. I loved this book both for the natural beauty of LA which is sometimes lost in our daily lives - and way that it blended the Watts unrest through today to U.S. history of war and occupation. The characters are not cliche- they are very real and very familiar. As a 2nd gen Korean who grew up here the descriptions of JA characters as well as U.S. military in Korea and complicated Black/Asian relationships all resonated with me. As a community organizer working with low-income women of color and other immigrant workers - I found the same strange familiarity when "meeting" the social workers and non-profit folks in the story.

If you care about LA - you'll care about this story - more importantly, you'll see the truth in it.

As far as the first reviewer goes - it hardly mattered to the arc of the tale whether or not Jackie was queer or not - but it added a genuine personal dimension (without force or artifice) that I totally appreciated.

Perhaps this book is more pertinent towards a particular population of people. I am a Japanese-American who grew up in Southern California during the 60's, and this novel held a particular poignancy for me. Despite this, I found the book to be compelling and riveting. As the reader is taken through the multiple plot twists, a horrifying story emerges and the ending will leave you a different person. Love this book!

My wife found a reference to this novel in one of her Japanese language newspapers and suggested that I buy and read it. Am I ever happy that I did! Nina Revoyr has written a wonderful, gripping novel about some very tough times in our country, and has done so with understanding, compassion and feeling. Readers who lived through the era following World War Two will recall the ugly racial tensions of the era with all its denial, and the firestorms that erupted in Watts and other places as a result. Those who didn't live through it will get a harsh dose of reality as the protagonist searches for the killer of four black young men during the Watts riots, and the unexpected outcome as she discovers who the killer was.

I like Nina Revoyr's writing, I do not at all understand those who brush it off with comments like "trite," "mediocre" and "unrealistic." Having lived through that particular period in our history, I found the book very realistic. I hope Nina Revoyr keeps writing so that I can enjoy more of what she does. I couldn't put this book down.

George Polley
Seattle

It's obvious to me that the person writing this review did not read the book well. The people who died in the freezer were four Black boys, not Japanese. Because this book is about race relations, this is an important distinction.

As far as the book itself, it's enjoyable...a page turner. There are parts that are a bit overdone or that drag, but overall the book was very well-written and researched.

This was an incredible journey for me as I lived two blocks from the Furiyas until 1977 when my family moved from Versailles, Indiana. I remember the family fondly and this book put the rest of the story to many of my childhood memories.

I remember the summer Linda went to Japan and had always wondered what the trip was like. Now I know!

I bought the book this morning and finished it this evening. It's a great read and I'm now looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

I grew up half-Japanese in a whitebread small town in Illinois during the same period author Linda Furiya lived in her small Indiana town, and I can relate to much of her story. Was that the old Star Market in Chicago that her family made special trips to just like my family did? The author paints quite a revealing portrait of her life, wanting desperately to be like the other kids and confused about where she belongs and how to merge her two cultures. The racism she encounters and must deal with on her own will pull the heartstrings of readers. Her dream trip to Japan as a ten-year-old where she discovers her roots and her family is a deeply felt learning experience and creates a bond with her somewhat distant mother. Perhaps it is a typical immigrant story where children raised in America have a difficult time understanding the ways of parents of a foreign culture. Furiya offers a no-holds-barred commentary on this difficulty as well as the frustrations and confusion she felt as an alien in the country she was born and raised in.

Despite the disjointedness that often occurs in the flow between chapters, the subject of food and its meaning in her life provides a connectivity that culminates in a beautiful final chapter where Furija is able to look back on her childhood and come to a sense of understanding and peace. I quite enjoyed this book and plan on trying out some of the recipes.

Furiya has a voice that is warm, approachable, and intimate. Reading her work, you feel in the company of a friend who also happens to be a masterful storyteller. She weaves a tale that's both exotic and profoundly American, one that combines family and food in a way that's lyrical but never sentimental. Wherever you grew up, and whatever you mother put in your lunchbox, this is a treat to savor.

I was so anxious to read this book- I loved the title and expected some kind of knowledge or insight to come from having read it. Unfortunately I found it to be a very humdrum account of childhood angst in the midwest. I was surprised to learn that the author was a professional journalist; the grammar and punctuation were just awful in places and the flow was practically nonexistent, with the author going back and forth in time as if to teach the reader a lesson about something, but no lesson ever came, except possibly that people of Japanese heritage are annoyingly nonconfrontational and midwestern American men are dirty old predatory geezers. I can live without that type of pigeonholing, thank you.

As a Japanese-American raised first in California and then in Texas, I can relate to many of the experiences that author Linda Furiya, a food columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, shares in her childhood memoir of growing up as a Nisei in a small Indiana community, in particular, the complex interdependency evident in her relationship with her Japanese-born mother. In fact, Furiya spends little time writing about her father or her brothers because of the especially symbiotic connection with her mother. Her particular back story as an atypically liberated woman in a male-dominated society lends an intriguing twist on the stereotype one usually associates with the traditional Japanese woman.

Similar to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, the book is a series of vignettes organized around selective memories of preparing and eating food reflective of the author's heritage. Whereas Esquivel opened each of her chapters with a recipe, Furiya chooses to close each chapter with one for family favorites such as Chinese Home-Style Tofu and Japanese Pot Stickers. Although the recipes make nice transitional points within her episodic structure, they actually aren't that necessary since she otherwise captures the pervasive dichotomy of having a racial identity utterly different from her surroundings in ways that are both poignant and painful. Some of the episodes felt so familiar to me that it made me wonder just how well Asian-Americans in general have assimilated into the mainstream.

The book's title refers to the Japanese box lunches that her mother would meticulously prepare for her to take to elementary school where her classmates had their regulation sandwiches. Rather than face embarrassing stares and questions, she would hide in the bathroom eating her mother's homemade onigiri. That palpable sense of isolation informs many of the anecdotes Furiya shares here, as they highlight the subtle forms of racism and sexism she experienced firsthand while attempting to make sense of her place between two distinct cultures. Moreover, she makes precisely calibrated observations on the generational conflict that seemed inevitable in serving to alienate her from her heritage only to embrace it later through her love of Japanese food. Despite some heavy-handed passages, the book is a relatively light read that taps into darker themes in a most affecting manner.

Frances Cogan provides interesting insight on another event during World War II that has been somewhat buried amongst the military battles that occurred in the Pacific theater of the war. CAPTURED: THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT OF AMERICAN CIVILIANS IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1941-1945 reveals the forgotten hardships that 5,000 American civilians had to endure while imprisoned by the Japanese army in one of several regions within the Philippine islands, such as Baguio.

Cogan derives her information from both primary and secondary sources. She tells a brief description of the Philippines, and what attracted Americans to live and work in the Islands. The most revealing part of the book is the internees' experiences. With much detail. Within her examination, Cogan attempts to integrate what was happening on the war front, the Bataan Death March and criticism of Gen. MacArthur's plans in the Pacific theater, as well as conditions within the prison walls, such as how food was distributed and how internees endured and occupied their time; the most interesting aspect is how the Philippine people helped to provide food and medical aid to the internees despite the conditions.

The only weakness of Cogan's examination is her very brief description of Filipino internees. They too had suffered under the Japanese occupation, and experienced extreme casualties and brutal treatment. Their experience is merely noted within a few pages near the conclusion of the book. In addition, the American internees suffered fear and unbearable experiences during their ordeal, but their stories appear briefly between the quantitative details.

Nevertheless, CAPTURED is a fresh perspective of the conflict in the Pacific during World War II. With Frances Cogan's historical narrative, readers will understand how this little know event in Social history relates to one of the most examined periods in 20th century history.

This book is full of historical errors. There were so many that I stopped reading it after I had finished about 80 pages. The author should revise the present edition and do more research to eliminate all those execreble and egregious errors! I am a survior of the Battle of Manila and I know whereof I speak.

Dr. Cogan's book is a well written, extremely well researched and oddly enough, politically incorrect account of the civilian internment during the war. She seems to prefer to give an accurate account rather than a sanitized version that many seem to prefer these days. Between her and Iris Chang, people have finally have a chance to read the truth about the terrible crimes committed by Japan throughout the Far East both before US involvement and after.

Ms. Cogan has produced an enduring and fascinating piece of scholarship; in addition to being minutely researched, this work is readable and enjoyable even to a scientist such as myself. As a biochemist who has read C.P. Snow, I find it obvious that Ms. Cogan is among those few scholars who can straddle "The Two Cultures" with ease. Her book is an important addition to the historical works available on the Pacific Theatre during WWII

Captured by Frances B. Cogan proves to be a well written and well researched book that reflects on the experiences of the American civilians living in Philippines after they were interned by the Japanese military during the Second World War. The author managed to find a keen balance in telling the history of the American civilians under Japanese rule and the considerable hardship it imposed upon them. However, the author take this approach with unexpected fairness and unbaised writing. While the Japanese military can hardly be considered to be a kind and caring people, nor were they monsters in uniforms. The author clearly pointed out that cultural, racial and military differences between the two sides make the American civilians internship that much more harder.

The book take a balanced look at different internment camps, experiences of individuals and their interpersonal relationship with each other as well as with their guards. A look at the privilage life prior to the war gives a good understanding of their mindset as they fell into captivity. The book also gives an good insights to what happened after they were released, not only to the Americans but to their native friends they left behind. I was bit surprised that she was bit critical about the Los Blancos raid when she wrote that it was good for the Americans but terrible for the native people who paid the price of Japanese anger.

The author on the other hand, is no great admirer of Douglas MacArthur. In some ways, she think MacArthur did more harm then good toward the internees by their experiences. She also take a curious turn when she try to compared the internment of Japanese-Americans to the American civilians in the Philippines. Maybe she forget that there's a massive difference between being interned by your own government in your own country and being interned by a hostile foreign military while living in a foreign land.

Overall, I found this book to be pretty important in telling the overall story of the American civilians in Philippines during World War II. The book come highly recommended for anyone interested in this subject matter.

When you download a sample, you expect at least a little bit of the meat of the book so you can see if it's worth buying or not. In the case of this book, all you get is how the author uses people's names, and part of a pronounciation guide... useless.

When I started doing research for my honors thesis, I was excited to see how many books there were on the difference between American and Japanese business environments. I was immediately dissapointed; each and every book was filled with generalizations based on anecdotal evidence and weak extrapolations from history and language. Although Haru Yamada's book is an exception in that it actually has real data in it, that data is merely the analysis of a three-person American meeting and a three person Japanese meeting. That is hardly a representative sample.

The first thing you have to learn when attempting to interact with another culture is that culture does affect the way we communicate, and that bad experiences are often the result of misunderstanding. For someone with no experience with Japan, reading a book like this might be helpful. "Oh, OK. These are the things that I should watch out for." But there is always the danger that people will take the contents as gospel. In my experience, expecting that the Japanese will act a certian way only increases frustration and actually impedes progress. Its much better to start off on a clean slate, and to keep in mind that culture might throw off your "gut" impressions, so give people the benefit of the doubt.

What I would desperately like to see is a real linguistic study with hard conversation-derived data that merely attempts to discover what people DO, rather than how they ARE. As soon as you start talking about what an entire nation of people is like you officially leave the realm of sciences and enter the realm of stereotypes.

My dissertation is on US-Japan relations, so I've had to read a lot of these types of books. Its a shame more of them aren't like this. Granted, its not perfect, but if you had time to read only one book on the Japanese before jumping on a plane to negotiate your company's deal, I would hope this might be one of the books on the Airport bookstore's shelf... which it probably isn't.

If anyone is qualified to write about the subject of US-Japanese communication, it is Yamada. She is truly bi-cultural and bi-lingual, having significant experience in both the United States and Japan (her father's employment required the family to move in three year cycles between the United States and Japan, and she attended schools and universities in both countries). She adds to this experience sociolinguistic research credentials acquired under Deborah Tannen at Georgetown, which she puts to use in conducting a solid reseach study of US and Japanese business communication patterns. Yamada draws on this unique expertise to illustrate her points in a particularly clear and engaging way.

The very first page of this book made me wary. In an anecdotal style representative of the book as a whole, the author tells of her surprise at learning of the "American" version of Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper (cicada) in which the ants turn the grasshopper away during winter because he played all summer. She offers an alternative "Japanese" version in which the ants invite the grasshopper in to join a party because they worked so hard during the summer doing their "role" singing. She uses this to justify two polarized paradigms of communication (though not merely communication) for each culture: Japanese are interdependent and Americans are independent. (For some reason she never uses Westeners or even English speakers but always Americans). Interesting story but I thought it sounded suspicious. Well, guess what? After interviewing DOZENS of Japanese people from a variety of backgrounds and asking them to finish the story, I have YET to find anyone who can even believe the "nice ant" ending much less anyone who had heard it previously or offers it. Even when asked to brainstorm alternative endings, this ending never appears, however, grasshopper/cicada raids on the ant community do. Yamada disingenuously offers this footnote "I have been told that a more literal translation of the original version exists in Japanese where the rejected grasshopper sadly walks away at the end of the story." Exists? Have been told? It doesn't merely exist but is the only version anyone seems to know. Furthermore, somehow she interprets this story as showing idealized American independence and "the importance of fending for yourself." According to her, "the point is that each person is responsible for his or her destiny" while the Japanese version shows "everyone has a role in society." Really? How can one justify that? How is the work ethic of a collective ant colony about fending for oneself? It would seem much more apt to describe some kind of socialist system. If this kind of interpretation of endings is valid, what about the endings offered in which the cicada invades the ants' mound? Sounds like Manchuria to me. The first page is indicative of the whole book. Things are overly stylized and distorted for academic symmetry. Anecdotes are highly spurious and sometimes only tenuously related to the point at hand. After the first page I simply couldn't accept any of them so that now looking back at the points of this book requires a pillar of salt. In fact, one gets the very distinct impression from the personal anecdotes given that, despite being a trained linguist specializing in cross-cultural communication, Yamada often just doesn't get the REAL point behind what people are saying or the genuine motivation for their actions. Exaggerations, misrepresentations, and stylizations abound obscuring what would otherwise be interesting points. Nonetheless, the book reads like an article from Ophrah's magazine (or what I would imagine they read like) if you inserted a bunch of romanized Japanese words with constant parenthetical translations (also the subject of some disagreement for many of the native speakers with whom I spoke). You finish the book almost as soon as you start. In particular, the "quotes" of parents instructing their children in each language were amusing. I have heard very similar things myself. The notes from the business meetings are interesting (particularly the Japanese section-head meeting) but watching her dissect the American meeting raises doubts in my mind about the validity of her Japanese analysis. She does introduce some interesting points but the sample is so small one feels distinctly disappointed in not getting to see these "principles" at work in other situations. It reminded me of the perfunctory "labs" that might go along with a Junior High science class. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is the abundance of Japanese present. I actually learned a few useful words from this book, however, as most things in the book, they too become stylized. The discussion of AMAYAKASHISUGI (too sweet), WAGAMAMA (spoilt), TSUMETAI(cold), AND KATTE(selfish) is a good example. No one I spoke to agreed with the sharp opposition she set up among these terms. While this did provide for many interesting discussions, she should not have introduced these as terms defined merely by nurturer/nurtured over/under indulgence. For example, AMAYAKASHISUGI, to my understanding, might be better thought of as "doting" and used almost exclusively for parents. WAGAMA is not merely spoilt in the taking sense that we normally think of. In fact, the first situation I was given defining WAGAMAMA had a person giving a gift in expectation of a certain response and being disappointed not to receive it. Not what we expect exactly. TSUMETAI and KATTE simply aren't polarized in the way defined in the book. KATTE is not merely selfish but also snobbish. I was told a KATTE person may even get mad at the rain. TSUMETAI is used not only for under indulgent nurturers but also for the nurtured. Of course, a lot of the time nurturing is not the correct metaphor for the relationship and so this whole system breaks down anyway. Overall I found the book worth reading but not because it gave me answers. Quite the opposite. I found that it made me ask questions. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to have access to a large group of Japanese people to discuss these propositions with, I don't think you'll get nearly as much out of it. I actually think the central conceit of the book is correct, namely that Japanese communication grows out of a culture of interdependence and American communication from a culture of independence, however, the support for this thesis is mixed and often counterproductive.

Despite the title and despite the comment of an earlier reviewer, "All I Asking for Is My Body" is an extremely well written story that perfectly captures the Japanese-American experience in Hawaii. It is clear that Murayama himself experienced many of the things that his protagonist does, as his commentary on plantation life, reactions to the Pearl Harbor bombing, the traditional Japanese family system, and the importance of filial piety rings strong and true. Perhaps my only complaint about this book was its brevity, I wish Murayama would've gone into more detail at points, and the ending itself seemed a little too pat given the hardships the family had gone through together for years (decades really). I found myself wanting to know what Kiyoshi would have done had he not suddenly figured out the key to craps and freed his family from debt through gambling. After following his own beliefs into the army, would he have been willing or able to settle for plantation life again after the war?

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the confidence all of the characters have in themselves as individuals. In contrast to John Okada's "No-No Boy," where the protagonist spends the entire novel searching for an identity (rather than feeling Japanese or feeling American he feels largely empty instead), that is not an issue in this story. Kiyoshi has a very strong family and community structure around him.

All I Asking for Is My Body is an excellent book, told very effectively through the eyes of a perceptive nisei who is often in difficult situations and forced to make tough choices. The experience of plantation workers in Hawaii is an oft-overlooked aspect of American history, but Murayama does a great job of bringing the time period to life again with a fluidity and grace that makes this story memorable and easy to understand, even for today's readers, who are removed from the time and place of this novel's action.

I especially recommend this book to those who have grown up in Hawaii. I was immediately struck by the powerful images captured by Murayama in "All I Asking For is My Body". The language and grammer are a perfect compliment to the depiction of the characters as well as the simple storyline. Murayama manages to pierce the soul of the reader, evoking emotions so powerful, one feels as if they live, over and over again, through the eyes of an ancestor. I loved this book.

This coming-of-age story feels *very* immediate and gripping, and yet, at least for this white female urban mainland reader, the experiences and world depicted are VERY far-removed from what I know. So, Murayama gives you that sense of urgent involvement that makes something really fun to read, while letting you look into a really intense world that you may nothing about before reading this book -- namely, sugar plantation life for Japanese immigrants in Hawaii in the 1940s. A real thumbs up, and a book I'll never forget.

I explored this book for my Hawaiian Lit class. The characters are vibrant and the use of local language draws the reader in to a world which is sadly starting to fade from the Islands.

Highly recommended.

Poor grammar? The book's pidgin English may often a nebulous maze to walk through for an untrained reader, but I find this book a lyrical joy to read everytime.

The novel itself is a bildungsroman of heartfelt and often painful emotions: being tied to the land and exploited by the plantation, obligation to family, and the constant yearning after hope.

Looking beyond the difficult pidgin "grammar," this is a quick, but worthwhile read.

LaFeber's three-part thesis: 1) that the Americans and Japanese have endured a series of clashes throughout their 150-year relationship, 2) that differing forms of capitalism have been at the root of these clashes, and 3) that the clashes have focused on China, almost works. However, in trying to fit the entire history of U.S. - Japanese relations into a single overarching framework, he underemphasizes the fundamental shift in the Japanese posture following the horrific conclusion to the war in 1945. "The Clash" would more appropriately refer to that catastrophic event. The U.S. decision to rebuild Japan changed the Japanese view of the Americans. The Japanese also abandoned militarism as a means to achieve national goals. These changes represent a fundamental shift in relations between the countries, even though differences relating to their respective forms of capitalism and views of China persist. LaFeber's attempt to paint ongoing differences between the two nations as part of the same "Clash" that led to war fails to emphasize this fundamental shift; his brush is too broad.

Even so, LaFeber's work presents a great amount of information regarding the history of diplomatic relations of Japan with the U.S. and is certainly worth reading. His three-part thesis does bring to light ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Japan which might otherwise be overlooked.

As one whose work requires knowledge of contemporary East Asian affairs, I can highly recommend "Clash" for the light that it sheds on past and present U.S. interests and actions in the region. Published in 1997, the book is a bit dated, but Clash does facilitate prediction of future diplomatic, military, and economic relations based upon past crises.

LaFeber, who appears to have a slight bias in favor of the Japanese, especially during the American imperialistic era, structures his work by examining U.S.-Japanese relations in three themes, which he continually revisits in his description of the relationship between the two nations since 1850. The first theme is that, despite the apparent cooperation between the U.S. and Japan during the past century and a half, the relationship has been (and presumably will be) punctuated by a series of crises that severely stress association between the two. Next, LaFeber contends that the economic systems of the U.S. (capitalistic, free-market economy) and Japan (non-capitalistic, government and large corporation controlled economy) are incompatible, and have led to clashes on respective trade and economic policies. Finally, the focal point of all clashes and economic strife between the two revolve around the question of China, regarding both policies of its political disposition and the potential opening of its markets.

While addressing these three themes, LaFeber does not ignore the effects on U.S.-Japanese relations of Western imperialism and racism, nuclear proliferation, exploitation of Asia through the use of international law, and power of U.S. business interests in Asia (and how those interests drove diplomacy).

Despite the excellent research and structure of this work, it left some room for improvement. Some examples of possible improvements include: (1) LaFeber chose to shift between Pinyin and Wade-Giles for his romanization of Mandarin. This use of two different systems was confusing in a work already overloaded with names of actors from many different nationalities. (2) LaFeber's relation of WWII in the Pacific was fairly amateur. I understand that hundreds of books have been written solely describing that war, and that he was likely attempting to limit overall length, but he could have had a much better description of the war in the space that he used.

LaFeber's style is not pretentious and is very readable, somewhat unusual for such a scholarly work. It is also relevant and contributes to an elevated understanding of East Asian affairs. I recommend this work as an entry point for anyone who desires to view Japan or greater East Asia from the standpoint of national security or economics.

LaFeber certainly makes logical conclusions from factual evidence which lends credibility to his work. His thesis, that you have to examine the deep historical roots of the US-Japanese relationship to understand the causes of their many clashes in the 150 year relationship, is proven time and time again in the book. Not good bedtime reading unless you need help sleeping.

In this very readable book LaFeber recounts the relations between the United States and Japan since Commodore Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay .

LaFeber shows that both Japan and America were very interested in the resources and the potential market of China. This rivalry was more serious for Japan, since Japan had almost no resources of her own. As America and Japan became stronger they jockeyed for access to the markets of China and the resources of Manchuria while Russia and China declined. This eventually led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific.

After the war America tried and failed to change Japans views of capitalism and democracy or persuade Japan to ignore the China markets and develop her military strength against the now rising Russia and China.

LaFeber describes the different political and economy backgrounds of America and Japan to explain the actions, and different views of capitalism and democracy of Japan and America. LaFeber also points out the racism of America and Japan that damaged the relations between them.

This book has an excellent bibliography and footnotes so the reader can go beyond the excellent research of LaFeber. There are also a series of maps that make the text easier to understand.

In THE CLASH by Walter LaFeber, U.S. Japanese relations collide over different visions of Asia. For Americans, Japan represented an opportunity to enter China and satisfy a western global reach built on the extension of Manifest Destiny. Asia stood as a far western American frontier. American commerce and power promised an enlightened deliverance of manufactured goods and a benign pacific paternalism, grounded within the western concepts of unrestricted capitalism and individual rights. For the Japanese, Asia never represented an idea, but a reality. Japan viewed China and other Asian countries through a historical lens encompassing thousands of years. Wishing to protect a harmonious culture and placing itself as a leading actor within Asian affairs, Japan clashed with the United States over a period of 150 years. LaFeber views economics and geo political factors as being the most important factors which shaped U.S. Japanese relations.
Beginning with Commodore Perry and the Five Ports treaty, America and Japan each resolved to satisfy their Asian objectives. America solved the the dilemna of overproduction, while Japan built a military and industrial complex that would place it on equal footing with Western imperial powers. After 1873, American and Japanese interests coalesced around the objectives of an Open China, a British alliance, a prevention of Russian and German colonialism, and acquiescence to American control over the Phillipines and Hawaii. In addition, america recognized Japanese control of Korea through the Taft-Katsura agreement. However, the relationship changed.
With the beginning of the 20th century, a U.S. Japanese clash emerged as Japan took control of Manchuria, asserted itself militarily through the Russo-Japanese War, and lost a British alliance through american post World War I credit. In addition, a world wide depression forced the United States and Japan to advocate total mobilization and a reevaluation of foreign policy objectives. Wishing to achieve a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese realized that U.S. Asiatic interests prevented Japanese control over Pacific resources. Therefore, Japan opted for a quick military strike against U.S. military forces. For Franklin Roosevelt, a world war provided domestic economic relief and the opportunity to integrate Asia within a US created global capitalist system. The dropping of two atomic bombs achieved American objectives.
Following a devastating defeat, Japan rebounded economically through American economic aid, Prime minister Kishi's move toward a more bureaucratic and central government, and american military conflicts within Korea and Vietnam, which provided substantial trading opportunities for Japanese industry. A reinvigorated and economically prosperous Japan produced another clash due to rising American trade deficits and the failure of Japan to stay politically in step with U.S. policy towards Asia and the Middle East.
After reading THE CLASH, I would agree that economic considerations played arole within the different competing visions of U.S.-Japanese relations. However, I would have liked to have seen more of an emphasis on American and Japanese cultural differences and the role they played in shaping relations. LaFeber hints at these differences with references to a nineteenth century Japanese delegation's observations of American female rights, the 1924 Excluson Acts, the rise of the zaibatsu, the Japanese internment, Truman's bestial comments, and the postwar interaction of American military personnel with Japanese citizens. However, LaFeber never gathers these divisive cultural factors into a cogent thesis.
This is strange , since Lafeber leaves no source unturned. Drawing on a large selection of Japanese and American sources, it would seem that LaFeber had an opportunity to focus on these cultural differences. Writing this book in 1997, LaFeber seems to have taken a modern U.S. Japanese foreign policy perspective which revolves around trade deficits and Asian markets. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the historical economic relationship between Japan and the United States and its impact on US Japanese relations. However, THE CLASH cannot be the sole source for explaining the different visions of Asia which contributed to a 150 year US Japanese relationship mired in misunderstanding.

It is fitting that the protagonist, Maya, is a weaver, for this book felt deftly "woven" to me, and I would dare to call Kyoko Mori the master weaver behind the scenes. The narrative moves seamlessly between present and past, signficant scenes in Maya's life and her interior moments, thus deepening our understanding of Maya and what accounts for her apparent coldness and detachment. The flaw I perceived had to do with the male characters, particularly her husband Jeff, who seemed a bit one-dimensional and stereotypical. A few other peripheral characters were a bit unsatisfying and "sketchy" as well. But perhaps even good weavings have a slipped stitch or a flaw somewhere; the other aspects of the book were so good that I could overlook this, and Jeff did become somewhat more complex for me near the end. The novel also beautiful portrays the friendship between Maya and her longtime friend Yuko, an emotional core to the novel that seems even more significant than the loss of Maya's father; the storyline about this female friendship was affecting, and their relationship had many unique qualities that I have not seen in other works of fiction. The end felt a little abstract to me, but there was much to think about, and a sense of hope. Overall, I found this an utterly engrossing novel; I read it in three sittings.

I love this book. Ever since i picked it up (as soon as it came out) I've been in love with it, and think it would make a great plot for a movie, just as long as nothing is changed (or too considerably!) ! The writing is simple and emotional. I love the way Mori describes everything, even though sometimes, there are some metaphors I don't understand or seem weird or out of place, but I like that for some reason. A great book, espeically for any Kyoko Mori fan. I've been one since I picked up "One Bird" (a YA novel of hers). I love the way the dialogue flows and I love her thoughts [in the novel].
However maybe, the beauty of this book might be ruined by Hollywood.
Well, whether or not, it became a movie - it should be enjoyed from whichever perspective you choose. I certainly can't wait for her next book to come out, provided she writes one !

I understand the reviewer who found this book awful and unreadable, though I wouldn't go that far. But the character Mori is describing a person who is quiet, unemotional, slow-paced (and who is probably herself), and so the book itself reads quietly, slowly, and unemotionally. Not my idea of a real good read.

The protagonist, Maya, finds herself most comfortable in a world of solitude. Her simple artisan's life in Milwaukee is satisfying: a husband who gives her peace and quiet, her best friend, a job working for one of her few true friends, and distance from her antagonizing mother. When news arrives from Japan of her estranged father's death, Maya's world gets whirled around. Throughout the following months, she begins to question her life: her need for solitude, the artistic and professional choices she has made, whether her relationship with her husband is the way a marriage should be. Eric, an artist who has made the choices Maya did not make, arrives to town and the two strike up a friendship which becomes amorous as Maya realizes that her life must change. This book is dazzling and carries with it a poetic language that is not found often enough in contemporary literature. Kyoko Mori's books have always been a pleasure, each one outdoing its predecessor.

I hate to write this, but I must because I feel so misled by the reviews. This was one of the worst books I've ever read. I absolutely couldn't finish it, though I wanted to, hoping there would be some redeeming moments. In the end, I quit because, with all the fine books out there, I didn't want to waste my time. This book is about a character dealing with the demise of her marriage. But I had no grasp of this character, or any or the other characters, for that matter. So I didn't care. The characters were sketchy, unreal. The author seemed to be writing from emotion. If you liked Slow Dance at Cedars you'll like this.

I have been collecting books of this genre - Manila during the Japanese occupation and subsequent liberation for a number of years and was pleased to add this to my collection. My mother's family was in Manila and like the author they suffered and struggled. To the reviewer who noted that he doesn't care since he doesn't know the people, I say "so what" -- I don't give his review any credibility. One does not read books of this genre and expect to know the people involved. However, as one reviewer has already pointed out, the author made the egregious error of referring to the "Jesuits" at DeLaSalle. My grandfather was president of the DeLaSalle Alumni Association in 1944-45, all of my Uncles attended DeLaSalle and were the author's classmates. To link Jesuits to De La Salle totally negates the credibility of the book in it's entirety to any De La Salle or Ateneo (the Jesuit School)alumni. I am giving it three stars because of the subject but this book should have been edited for accuracy before publication.

A truly amazing story based on real life events documenting Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany to a friendly Phillipines until takeover and oppression by the Japanese Army during World War II.

Frank Emphraim recounts tales long forgotten of bravery, heroism, survival and despair. As a child he immigrated to the Phillipines as the result of extraordinary efforts on the part of the U.S. and Phillipine governments. He tells, along with many others, the story of the four Frieder brothers who took great effort to secure the absorption of 1,200 Jewish immigrants into the Phillipines with the help of Phillipine President Quezon and U.S. High Commissioner Paul McNutt.

What was once a growing Jewish community interspersed amongst native Phillipinos was decimated by the Japanese invasion prior to it's ultimate reclaiming by American troops during the Battle of Manila. Much like Schlinder's List but set in the tropics.

I found this book quite by accident in the library of the Army & Navy Club in Washington, DC, little suspecting it contained interesting details of the Netzorg family in the Phillipines prior to WWII. My grandmother's maiden name was Netzorg, and the family settled in Carson City, MI. My father was quite proud of his Netzorg antecedents, and this book helps me understand now what I couldn't appreciate 50 years ago. Family history notwithstanding, Mr. Ephraim uncovers fascinating details how Jews fleeing Germany found sanctuary in a most unlikely place. He records the generosity of the Philippine people, a spirit that wasn't widely shared in the world at that time. It truly deserves recognition then as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

"Escape To Manila" by Frank Ephraim. Subtitled "From Nazi Tyranny To Japanese Terror". University of Illinois Press, 2003.

This is a collection of intriguing stories, documenting the escape of many different Jewish people, families and individuals, from the impending Holocaust in Nazi dominated Europe. One of the escapees is the author, Frank Ephraim, who has done a great deal of research on how and when the individual escapees reached Manila, The Philippines, and their fate when the Japanese were forced out.

Each of the intriguing stories has its own chronology: some Jews escaped in the early 1930s, when the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws painted a dark picture of their future, while others did not leave until the September 1st 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland. These necessarily different chronologies can be confusing as you read this interesting book. Further, the author insists giving the date of the Pearl Harbor attack as December 8th, I.e. Manila time, as the Philippines are on the other side of the International Dateline. Of particular interest to me was the story of the young man who flew from Europe to the ends of Asia (Shanghai) in a German JU52. He was the only passenger. That kind of trip was rare enough at that time, but for a Jew who was escaping it was audacious. Further, the author completes the story, through enough research, to track down what happened to that aircraft after Pearl Harbor.

The author's research has some flaws, however. On page 73 he mentions the Catholic De La Salle College", which he attended on Taft Avenue in Manila. He states that the College was staffed by "... Jesuit brothers". This is in error. De La Salle College was begun and staffed by the Christian Brothers De La Salle, an order of teaching brothers begun by St. John Baptist De La Salle(1651-1719) in Reims, France. The Jesuits do have brothers, but they were begun by St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556). When I checked the notes in the back of the book, the reference to the college and the Jesuits brothers was based upon "personal recollection". In my Historiography classes, my professor warned me against depending solely on personal recollection or personal memory. So, I went to the web site for De La Salle College (now University) and that confirmed that it was the Christian Brothers De La Salle. By the way, the Japanese massacred fifteen of the Brothers in the last days of the occupation. As a graduate of Manhattan College, begun by the Christian Brothers De La Sale in 1853, I am, perhaps, oversensitive to any slight, intended or unintended, to them.

I thought the topic seemed interesting. The writing is hard to follow, tons of names which probably mean a lot to the author but not to the reader. It reminded me of memoirs written by family members, great if you know them, but only if you do. Too few facts, too many personal experiences which are of little interest to people outside the family circle.

I recommend its book to people because it is a really good book and is a fast read and is a book you cant put down.

The book I read is called Kim/Kimi. I rated this book a 4 out of five. I rated it this because it was boring at some parts. I also did because there was not much action until the middle of the book. I liked this book because it was interesting and was something new to read about. It was a good book. It was kind of boring at times but over all I liked it. A good book that has a similar story is The Hiding Place. It's similar because they both talk about concentration camps in them. This book is not as good as the other one but they both are good books. Both of the books take place during World War II. In The Hiding Place, the Nazis lead by Adolph Hitler were discriminating against the Jewish people. In Kim/Kimi the Americans discriminated against the Japanese-American people. Another good book that is similar is Uncle Toms Cabin. It's similar because it's talking about people with a different race and how they were mistreated because of there race or culture. So remember do not judge people because of the way look!!!

This book is called Kim/Kimi. I personally thought it was a weird title but you have to know what it is about to relate to it. Kim/Kimi is the main character. Her father died when she was little and she is trying to find about what her father was like. She wanted to know if he had siblings so she could have an aunt or uncle. Her mom remarried and she never talked about her ex. Kim flies to California to look for information. Read this book to find out if she finds him!

I liked this book because it was well written and the author, Hadley Irwin, chose well words to use in his book also. I didn't really care for the end of the book because it was kind of dull and it should have told more of what happened later on. But over all it was an awesome book, and I would recommend this to anyone between the ages of 10-15.

Looking For a Good Book? Search No More!

Outcast, weird, different, strange, odd, peculiar. These are the words Kim Andrews uses to describe her self.
In a small town in Iowa lived Kim Andrews (also known as Kimi Yoshugi.) Her father had died before she was born and her mom had remarried. She's a short, Japanese girl with short and straight black hair. Barely anyone at her high school looks like her and her only friend is Jav. She doesn't fit in, she doesn't belong. So she decides the only thing she can do is set out to find her Japanese family and heritage in Sacramento, California.
Kim reached California and met up with Ernie, the son of Barbara, the lady Kim would be staying with. Ernie and Barbara agreed that Kim could do the search by herself, if that's what she wanted.
She goes many places, but the most important is the Bureau of Vital Statistics. She finds out all the information about where her relatives live. I don't want to give too much away, but she does find two of her family members. You'll have to finish the book to see what happens.
This book supports the ideas of believing in yourself, being proud of your heritage and not worrying that you don't fit in. Everyone is special and different in the in their own way. Just because you have a different religion, race or heritage doesn't mean that you're strange or weird.
I liked this book because it was adventurous and funny. Whenever things got too serious, Kim would throw in a joke and it would relieve the stress. It also gives you a different perspective of what a person is feeling. Anyone ages ten to fifteen should buy this book.

The central issue of "Kim/Kimi" is that Kim Andrews, half American and half Japanese, has no contact with the Japanese part of her family. Her Japanese father died when Kim was a toddler, after he had severed ties with his family in order to marry a white woman. Kim's mother, since remarried, rarely speaks of her first husband, especially the years he spent as a child, interred in a prison camp during World War II.

Kim (whose Japanese name is Kimi, hence the book's title) sets off on a journey in search of her father's family. The search doesn't result in a cliched happy reunion. Like real life, Kim's quest and its result are much more complex than that.

Throughout the book, Kim's addiction to serial romance novels is highlighted. The authors include "excerpts" from these cheesy novels to point out how different people's lives really are from these silly fantasies. As Kim notes, not everyone in real life has pretty eyes, shiny teeth, and problems that go no deeper than pimples.

I like this book for incorporating history in a non-textbook sense. True, the sections that mention the prison camps tend to get a little didactic, with many long speeches from survivors. Overall, though, this book was enjoyable both as an entertaining coming-of-age story and a painless history lesson.