These two volumes provide considerable background on the U.S.-Japanese relationship, where it stands today, and the alternative courses it might take in the critical years ahead. The tone of Destinies Shared, which is a collection of essays by specialists, is more optimistic than that of Nester. Both volumes suffer from the lack of a macroeconomic perspective and from the absence of a sufficiently detailed, up-to-date analysis of Japanese-U.S. economic relations.