A Diplomat in Japan: The Inner History of the Critical Years in the Evolution of Japan When the Ports Were Opened and the Monarchy Restored, Recorded by a Diplomatist Who Took an Active Part in the Events of the Time, with an Account of His Personal Experiences During That Period

In 1862, Ernest Satow arrived in Japan as a young student interpreter with the British legation. Within years, he would witness the collapse of 250 years of shogunal rule, the civil wars that accompanied the Meiji Restoration, and the birth of a modern nation from feudal chaos. This book is his firsthand account of those years, drawn from the diaries he kept and the relationships he built with samurai, daimyo, and the men who would reshape Japan. Satow was no detached observer. He negotiated with warring factions, barely escaped assassination, and moved through a country tearing itself apart as old Japan died and something new struggled to be born. His account captures the paranoia of the foreign legations trapped in the capital, the splendor of court rituals he witnessed, and the remarkable speed with which Japan transformed itself. Based on his private diary rather than事后回忆, this is intimate history from someone who breathed the smoke and uncertainty of those years.