This is an important document in the history of Japanese-American relations. In 2002, President Bush spoke of the great Japanese scholar and statesman Inazo Nitobe, who envisioned a future of friendship between the two nations. This book is one of the means by which Nitobe sought to bridge the Pacific. Writing before World War I, he presents a detailed account of Japan and the Japanese in terms easily understandable to western readers, emphasising points of similarity rather than difference, often citing the work of western historians and philosophers in order to explain Japanese practices,