Michael R. Auslin's Pacific Cosmopolitans explores nearly two centuries of cultural exchange between the United States and Japan. Auslin posits that few records of exchange “have been as consequential and long-lasting” (2). Indeed, according to Auslin, Japanese–US encounters gave rise to exchanges that, in part, shaped much of the modern world. Auslin explains the social context of this efflorescence, making Pacific Cosmopolitans a remarkable work of cultural history – one that explores the mutual transformations of Japan and the US as a result of cultural exchanges without losing sight of actors and organizations that facilitated this process.

At first, US–Japanese exchange was left to daring adventurers. Auslin contextualizes Tokugawa-period maritime restrictions, noting that these edicts were not comprehensive. Still, in the early nineteenth century Americans were unwelcome in Japan, and Japanese explorers who set sail for the US did so without the blessing of the bakufu. Encounters resulted, nonetheless, as a by-product of the increasing number of American whalers in the North Pacific. So in what Auslin refers to as an “era of shadows and trinkets,” the US and Japan remained largely ignorant of each other, with the exception of individuals who followed their curiosities to faraway lands (35). This is where Auslin's book shines, offering miniature biographies of people who dared to engage with the unknown.

According to Auslin, economic motivations led to official encounters such as Commodore Matthew Perry's 1853 arrival in Edo Bay, which Auslin describes as an “epochal” event that had ramifications in “every nook of Japanese life and a great deal of American life too” (45). Nonetheless, Auslin characterizes the idea of Perry “opening” Japan as a myth, crediting Townsend Harris for creating trade relations between the two nations in 1858. A subsequent increase in unofficial interactions prompted a faltering Tokugawa shogunate to send a convoy to the US in 1860. Another convoy toured the US in 1872, though it represented the recently empowered Meiji government, which looked “westward” for models of social, economic, political, and military modernization. Still, “classic adventurers” capture Auslin's attention, as he describes pioneering scholars, missionaries, entrepreneurs, and romantics who acted as “free agents” promoting understanding (61).

At the turn of the twentieth century, Japan and the US followed parallel paths toward imperialism, and Auslin replaces the role of individuals in his narrative with the rise of private groups dedicated to internationalism. The emergence of formalized agencies, including nongovernmental associations and philanthropic foundations, benefited mightily from support by wealthy industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller and Kaneko Kentarō. Auslin casts elites as midwives for “the birth of exchange,” and his detailed descriptions of efforts by learned societies to promote cosmopolitan values adds texture to the broader narrative of internationalism's transpacific rise (83).

Stories about seemingly beneficent efforts to promote internationalism increasingly give way to ones centered on ultranationalism, yet Auslin highlights this shift without losing sight of counternarratives that challenge those seeking teleological explanations of the Pacific war. That said, perhaps the earliest sign that imperial geopolitics had encroached on cultural exchange was Japan's 1904 display at the St. Louis World's Fair celebrating the ongoing Russo-Japanese War, suggesting both Japan's rising military prowess and its ambitions as a regional hegemon. By the 1930s, Japan's occupation of Manchuria and, eventually, portions of China led to more strident cultural foreign-policy campaigns, efforts that informed divergent perspectives on US–Japan relations. Meanwhile, members of the private-exchange community united in opposition to anti-Asian immigration policies in the US, but their inability to stop those policies exhibited their relatively inconsequential influence in national politics. On the eve of war, private organizations and citizens worked unsuccessfully to promote understanding between the US and Japan. Auslin notes that Kaneko Kentarō urged Japanese leaders to pursue peaceful engagement at the very moment when “pilots on the mission to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet were climbing into their cockpits” (167–68). Ultranationalism eclipsed cosmopolitanism, and the US eventually bombed almost every city in Japan.

The final portion of Pacific Cosmopolitans explores notable developments in modern Japan–US relations, and offers various perspectives on the relevance of different players in this phase of heightened and diffuse bilateral cultural relations. On the one hand, prewar societies worked to rebuild networks between transpacific elites. On the other hand, meritocratic societies emerged to develop scholarly contacts between the countries. All the while, popular culture spread in both directions; Japanese listened to jazz and attended professional wrestling matches, while Americans indulged in “Japan chic” and watched Akira Kurosawa films (184). Finally, deft and clumsy political moves continued to illustrate governmental influences in cultural affairs. Auslin traces these developments throughout the American Occupation of Japan, the Cold War, Zen Buddhism's spread to the US, Japan's emergence (and collapse) as an economic threat, Tokyo's reluctance to participate in Operation Desert Storm, and the irrepressible appeal of Hello Kitty. As that list suggests, Auslin's ambitious narrative grows unwieldy as it approaches the information age, but he successfully introduces key players, shares the stories of overlooked organizations, and provides frameworks for understanding the history of US–Japanese cultural relations in distinct phases that span roughly two hundred years.

Because Pacific Cosmopolitans has many strong points, certain shortcomings are notable. Auslin describes texts, scholarly societies, and government-sponsored academic work, but he neglects to mention either the anthropologist Ruth Benedict or her massively influential and controversial The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), though it would have enriched his exploration of postwar cultural relations. Also, an unusual number of typographical errors distracted this reader from simply enjoying Auslin's fascinating narrative. Yet the main shortcoming of Pacific Cosmopolitans is that it does not illustrate precisely how cultural relations between the US and Japan have proven “consequential” (2). Auslin insists that culture is subordinate to economics and politics. And perhaps he comes to this conclusion because he rarely explores some of the more consequential ways in which culture influences foreign relations – through conceptions of racial difference, contrasting religious worldviews, and clashing ideological positions. Still, Michael Auslin's Pacific Cosmopolitans has much to offer scholars and general readers interested in one of the most significant bilateral relationships in world history.