ABSTRACT

As the influence of the United States in Asia declines with the end of the Cold War, America must look more to brains than military might in achieving our objectives in the region. But after repeatedly allowing Japan - our closest ally in Asia - to mislead us intellectually and psychologically, how well are we prepared to deal with less friendly emerging powers like China and India? Based on three decades of on-the-spot observation and participation in Japan, Ivan Hall's provocative work draws the reader into a world of intellectual manipulation and gullibility, false images, emotional blackmail, financial beguilement, and fatuous expectations. It illuminates the many ways that American ideological hubris and Japanese pleading for special treatment combine to deprive our trans-Pacific dialogue of the honesty, openness, and plain common sense of our trans-Atlantic intellectual ties with Europe.

part |126 pages

Illusion: “On a Cloth Untrue”

chapter |34 pages

Economic Mirage

The Asian Crisis and “Change”

chapter |16 pages

Anti–Americanism

Sayonara as the Ultimate Blackmail

chapter |30 pages

New Old Right

Reactionaries in Neoconservative Garb

chapter |14 pages

Limping Liberalism

Civil Courage Derided as “Leftist Lite”

chapter |18 pages

Pan-Asianism

Behind the Bromides of East-West Bridging

chapter |12 pages

Samurai Ethic

Premature Prognoses of Individualism

part |82 pages

Collusion: “With a Twisted Cue”

chapter |18 pages

Special Pleading

Our Rhetorical Trouncing on Trade

chapter |12 pages

Ostracism

Sidelining the Heterodox

chapter |13 pages

Yen

The Pavlovian Trot for Japan's Academic Largesse

chapter |12 pages

Dollars

The Long Retreat of American Philanthropy

chapter |11 pages

Organization

The Mutual Understanding Industry

chapter |14 pages

People

Of Buffers, Barnacles, and Gatekeepers

part |74 pages

Self-Delusion: “And Elliptical Billiard Balls”

chapter |6 pages

Gullible's Travels

Our Four Faulty Vision Things

chapter |14 pages

Roller Coaster

The Prewar Matrix of Plus-Minus Images

chapter |10 pages

MacArthur Maxim

Democratic Missionizing Through the 1950s

chapter |12 pages

Reischauer Rubric

Cultural Sensitizing from the 1960s

chapter |9 pages

Number-Oneism

Economic Giantizing in the 1970s

chapter |8 pages

Brief Awakening

Revisionist Turnaround in the 1980s

chapter |13 pages

Dumbing Down

PC and Other Intellectual Follies of the 1990s

chapter |11 pages

Conclusion

The Punishment Fits the Crime