SOURCE: "Return of the Yellow Peril," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 254, No. 18, May 11, 1992, pp. 636-38.

In the following review of Rising Sun, Greenfeld faults the book for its stereotyping of the Japanese people and suggests that the novel's popularity may render legitimate criticism of Japan and Japanese society suspect.

Michael Crichton's Rising Sun, judging from its enormous sales (first on The New York Times's best-seller list for three weeks and still second as of April 19), could be the only book about Japan many Americans will ever read. If this is true, its portrayal of the Japanese as inscrutable, technologically proficient, predatory aliens who communicate through telepathy, subsist on unpalatable foods, manipulate everything and everyone and enjoy kinky, violent sex with white women will be more influential in shaping opinions about Japan and the Japanese than any of the more thoughtful and insightful books recently published.

Rising...