Like the German Question in Europe, the Japanese Question presents the spectre of a resurgent nation with immense economic power and a history that prompts concen whether it will again threaten its neighbours. Although these fears are openly expressed in Asia, Americans have up till now avoided them. This book, which shows how they underlie the paradoxes of US Japanese relations. The author, a leading scholar of the politics of the Japanese nationalism, describes Japan's strategy in the postwar era of relying on US defense while creating its economic miracle. Despite Japan's growing power and pride, he says, its effort to chart a new course in the 1980s proved unsuccessful, as its response to the Persian Gulf crisis showed. A final section of the book examines Japan's economic domination of Asia and discusses whether we should try to contain Japan within a bilateral relationship or to enlist it in a collective security arrangement for the Pacific.