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George R. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan . New York: Columbia University Press, 2010; xvi + 368 pp. $32.50 (cloth).

George R. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan . New York: Columbia... George R. Packard, formerly dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, offers a spirited defense of his academic mentor in this biography of Edwin O. Reischauer (1910-90), the most widely known twentieth-century Japan scholar in the United States. Packard, who also served as an aide during the latter portion of Reischauer’s tenure as ambassador to Japan (1961-66), emphasizes that this son of an American missionary family devoted his life to his own secular mission: the promotion of good relations between Japan, the land of his birth, and America. As one of the pioneers of academic Asian studies, Reischauer followed a career path that no contemporary scholar could imagine replicating. Although his Harvard dissertation research related to a Japanese monk's travels in Tang dynasty China, the months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor found Reischauer working in the Far Eastern Division of the State Department, futilely warning his superiors that pushing Japan into a corner with economic sanctions would lead to war. His linguistic abilities drew him into the military code-breaking operation during the war. Once it ended, he returned to the State Department and exerted some influence on occupation policy. Yet he chose not http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of American-East Asian Relations Brill

George R. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan . New York: Columbia University Press, 2010; xvi + 368 pp. $32.50 (cloth).

Journal of American-East Asian Relations , Volume 19 (3-4): 356 – Jan 1, 2012

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2012 by Koninklijke Brill N.V., Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Book Reviews
ISSN
1058-3947
eISSN
1876-5610
DOI
10.1163/18765610-01904004
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

George R. Packard, formerly dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, offers a spirited defense of his academic mentor in this biography of Edwin O. Reischauer (1910-90), the most widely known twentieth-century Japan scholar in the United States. Packard, who also served as an aide during the latter portion of Reischauer’s tenure as ambassador to Japan (1961-66), emphasizes that this son of an American missionary family devoted his life to his own secular mission: the promotion of good relations between Japan, the land of his birth, and America. As one of the pioneers of academic Asian studies, Reischauer followed a career path that no contemporary scholar could imagine replicating. Although his Harvard dissertation research related to a Japanese monk's travels in Tang dynasty China, the months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor found Reischauer working in the Far Eastern Division of the State Department, futilely warning his superiors that pushing Japan into a corner with economic sanctions would lead to war. His linguistic abilities drew him into the military code-breaking operation during the war. Once it ended, he returned to the State Department and exerted some influence on occupation policy. Yet he chose not

Journal

Journal of American-East Asian RelationsBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2012

There are no references for this article.