"With enormous erudition and meticulous analysis of materials, Rotem Kowner traces the parallel development of racial perspectives in early modern Europe and Japan. The result is a study compelling in scope, wealth of detail, and insight." - Kate Wildman Nakai, Sophia University "A work of uncommon depth and ambition. Drawing on sources across a dozen languages, Kowner reconstructs with meticulous precision how the Japanese came to be cast as immutably inferior within an increasingly rigid global racial hierarchy while simultaneously recovering the indigenous proto-racial discourse taking shape within Japan itself. Indispensable for anyone studying the formation of Western views of Japan or the global history of racial thought." - Frederik Cryns, International Research Center for Japanese Studies "A fitting continuation of his epic first volume on race. By examining the longue durée of racial thought through the lens of Japan, an imperialist non-white nation, Rotem Kowner complicates prevailing narratives and offers a deeper, genuinely global perspective on the emergence of modern ideas of race." - Kiri Paramore, University College Cork "Who are the Japanese? Or rather, how has this question been posed over time, on the basis of what information, and with what agendas? Rotem Kowner's explorations of these questions will be essential reading for all scholars on racism and racial identify, and, of course, of Japan, for decades to come.

" - Timon Screech, International Research Center for Japanese Studies "The long-awaited second volume in Kowner's series on Japan and race is perhaps even better than the first. Full of insight on the elusive idea of a Japanese race, it should be required reading." - Michael Keevak, National Taiwan University.