This work investigates how the rise of Japan as a global power between 1894 and 1914 challenged the racial and imperial hierarchies maintained by the British Empire. Cees Heere, a historian specializing in imperial and global history, utilizes archival records and diplomatic correspondence to argue that the Anglo-Japanese alliance was constantly undermined by racial anxieties and competing interests in the Pacific. The book demonstrates how the emergence of Japan forced British policymakers to reconcile their strategic need for an ally with the exclusionary racial ideologies prevalent across the British world.

Scholars in the field of imperial history recognize this text as a rigorous examination of the intersection between race and diplomacy in the early twentieth century. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the author's meticulous use of primary source documentation to support his arguments.