BLACK SHIPS AND SAMURAI: COMMODORE PERRY AND THE OPENING OF JAPAN (1853 - 1854) is an Internet-based product of the MIT OpenCourseWare project which aims to "make all MIT course materials available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. The OCW initiative continues a tradition of open dissemination of educational materials and modes of thought, leading to fundamental changes in the way universities utilize the Web for education." The online exhibit, the work of Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa, supports a traveling museum display of images from both Japanese and American sources detailing the initial encounter between Japan and the United States taking place in the mid-nineteenth century. These materials also form a core for an MIT course on Visualizing Cultures and constituted a major lobby exhibit for the 2004 Broadwayt revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Pacific Overtures" directed by Amon Miyamoto. Examining the images and taking time to read the accompanying narrative analysis should help you better understand and appreciate the nature of the cultural similarities and dissimilarities with which the two cultures confronted one another almost a century and a half ago. These particular thematic materials are part of an ever-increasing set of similar units on the Visualizing Cultures course web site making excellent use of visual imagery; all are well worth exploration.

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