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Introduction
In 1938 A. Whitney Griswold, then a young assistant professor at Yale University, published The Far Eastern Policy of the United States. The title, appropriately modest and scholarly, belied the work’s dramatic sweep: the whole course of American relations with eastern Asia—from the establishment of American power in Hawaii and the Philippines and the formulation of policy in the open door notes, through the identification of Japan as the aggressive challenger of America’s position, to FDR’s 24-Hour policy of watchful waiting for the Japanese to retreat or strike.
The study won instant acclaim, as the best, the standard, possibly the definitive work on that vast panorama of events and relationships shaping the course of the twentieth century. In the rather quaint plus, minus, and neuter correlations of the Book Review Digest, the reviews logged in at almost 100 percent plus. Current History gave “highest praise.” “Scholarly…, up to date…, strictly realistic,” said Foreign Affairs. “The most serious study of American policy in the Far East ever made, a book which will be standard for decades” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science); “unified and coherent, the most authoritative account available” (New Republic); “readable, clear, well balanced” (Yale Review). Walter Millis called it “solid and painstaking,” “exhaustive,” and “analytical,” and to Allan Nevins it represented not only the “most authoritative treatment in print,” but “more than an expert historical analysis…a bold and acute interpretation.”