'In this fluent account of the dynamic interplay between individual English and American chemists and their Japanese students in three continents, Kikuchi provides a vivid analysis of how different styles of teaching and research affected attitudes to pure and applied chemistry. His brilliant demonstration of the different cultural functions of professors and assistants, and of the laboratory as a two-way contact zone for cultural exchanges, provides an important model for historians of chemistry.' - William Brock, Emeritus Professor of History of Science, University of Leicester, UK