Outposts of civilization

the long version

"In Outposts of Civilization Joseph M. Henning considers culture to be integral to understanding foreign relations. Thus, in addition to official documents and press reports, he examines American missionaries' writings on the Japanese, and American and Japanese art and literature produced during the Gilded Age. In exploring the delicate and deliberate process of identity construction, and how these discourses on race and progress resonated throughout the twentieth century. Henning has produced a fascinating and important study of American-Japanese relations."--BOOK JACKET.