Since the First World War, food and nutrition have attracted increasing global attention. To the growing scholarship endeavouring to further people’s knowledge of this global phenomenon, Josep L. Barona’s latest book is a timely contribution. This first full-length English-language monograph on Japanese nutrition science in the early twentieth century, Nutritional Policies and International Diplomacy highlights the activities of Japanese nutrition scientist Tadasu Saiki and the Imperial State Institute of Nutrition (also known as the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition). Among existing English-language scholarship on the general history of nutrition, only a few have discussed nutrition studies conducted in Japan, with a particular focus on the investigation into beriberi.Footnote ¹ Historians like Nathan Hopson and Sunho Ko have recently completed more specific studies of Japan’s nutrition studies.Footnote ² Barona’s new book is another welcomed interdisciplinary examination of nutrition science that engages with the history of public health, food studies, diplomacy and science and cultural studies.

Barona’s analysis draws upon the historiography of modern Japan and his own specialty of public health. The first four synthetic chapters examine the internationalisation of Japanese nutrition science with the evolution of Western medicine and public health in Japan and cooperation over disease control in Asia. The archival Chapters 5–7 offer a fresh glimpse of Saiki’s cultural and scientific diplomacy, which placed Japan on the map of global nutrition science. Chapter 8 stresses the negative effects of the Second World War on Japanese health and nutrition and the promotion of animal protein and improved health under U.S. occupation after the war.

This study admirably bridges medical and diplomatic history and cultural studies. Through the case of Japan, Barona demonstrates the complexity of food and nutrition in modern history. More importantly, his coverage of Japanese initiative helps rethink the historiography of modern Japanese medicine. Historians have long described Japanese medical practices and knowledge as no more than state tools to cultivate healthy soldiers, labours and imperial subjects. Bringing Saiki and the Imperial State Institute of Nutrition to centre stage, Barona highlights how Japan inspired other countries, particularly those in Latin America, to institutionalise nutrition research. Through the League of Nations and the Rockefeller Foundation, Japanese nutrition scientists actively contributed to global research on vitamins and human metabolism and on the relationship between nutrition and disease. By locating Japan within a global network of nutritional knowledge production and circulation, Barona brings a fresh global perspective to the history of nutrition science.

Given his limited proficiency in Japanese, Barona overlooks key Japanese-language scholarship on nutrition science in Japan. Already in 1960, Hiromichi Hagiwara published a thorough survey of the history of nutrition science in modern Japan, detailing Saiki’s contribution to both domestic and international dietary reform. Nobuhisa Namimatsu’s recent study also centres Saiki.Footnote ³ Barona’s focus on Saiki also exaggerates the significance of inter-war Japan. Japan introduced clinical and experimental methods in nutrition research as early as the 1870s, not, as Barona argues, in the early twentieth century. Similarly, the ‘new’ paradigms such as optimum and minimum diets, calorie requirements and nutritional values all emerged in the 1880s.

Barona’s brief discussion of post-war Japan is problematic. American policies did help change diet preference in occupied Japan. But post-war Japanese nutrition research was not a complete departure from inter-war developments. Relying primarily on the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and on the scholarship of Christopher Aldous and Akihito Suzuki, Barona overlooks key continuities in Japanese institutions, personnel and research methods. A broader survey of Japanese and English primary sources might accentuate the significance of Japan’s experience. For instance, archival records from Rockefeller Foundation show that post-war Japanese nutrition surveys were conducted by Japanese nutritionists, who were trained in pre-war Japan and used well-established methods in inter-war years.Footnote ⁴ In that sense, Barona’s book marks a good invitation for further study.