Understanding “Asianization”  “Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting!”
exclaims the publicity flyer for Warren I. Cohen’s The Asian
American Century. The book tries to achieve more substantial
analysis than the above quote, but its broad generalizations
about Asian-American relations rarely contain more insight than
the average pop song.  Cohen is a Distinguished University
Professor of History at University of Maryland with an extensive
background in Asian-American relations, having published several
works on the subject, including America’s Response to China
(2000) and East Asia at the Center (2000). Cohen based his
latest work, The Asian American Century, on the Reischauer
Lectures he delivered at Harvard in April 2000. In a compact 150
pages, Cohen attempts to breeze through three hefty topics: the
history of American intervention in East Asia, the
“Americanization” of East Asian culture, and finally, the
“Asianization” of America.  Two prominent themes underlie
Cohen’s analysis of America’s historical, cultural