The permutations of globalization have become so numerous and the vicissitudes of globalization so pervasive that it is tempting to dismiss books that contain some form of the word global in the title as a transparent attempt to exploit the latest trend in discourse of political economy. The trouble with yielding to that temptation is that mere awareness of the term globalization is not the same as understanding its definition, still less the same as appreciating the fact that, as globalization evolves, its dynamics do not belong solely to Anglo-American, Euro-American, or Anglo-European priorities. The Western academy's tendency to discourse on globalization and other complex geopolitical and cultural phenomena not only from but also in terms of a Western perspective may serve a useful purpose, but it is important to recognize that such a purpose is ipso facto limited, if it is accepted that the meaning of global really is global. Nor is it sufficient to say that globalization represents a postcolonial response to such co-optation, since the postcolonial experiences of former colonies has been so diverse around the world. Rather, globalization has something of a life of its own, or more exactly multiple inputs from nations and cultures and lives irrespective of Western perceptions, preferences, priorities, or interventions. Further, the West--and particularly the United States--will ignore, to its great cost, the variety of non-Western perspectives and nation-state behaviors as the forces of globalization, including (or especially) the influence of culture on politics and economics, overlap and converge.
All of this is by way of introduction to Akira Iriye's China and Japan in the Global Setting, which does not ignore the role played by the United States in east Asia (particularly after World War II) but which emphasizes the Sino-Japanese dyad as a fundamental, not secondary or subsidiary, determinant of the shape of modern culture...