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

A 1921 account of the Meiji Restoration by a British diplomat who was stationed in Japan at the time.

Ernest Satow (Author)

9781108080958, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2015

442 pages, 7 b/w illus. 2 maps
21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm, 0.5 kg

A brilliant linguist, Sir Ernest Satow (1843–1929) was recruited into the British consular service as a student interpreter in 1861. The following year he arrived in Japan, where he witnessed the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji restoration of imperial rule. Drafted in the 1880s while he was consul-general in Bangkok, this 1921 account is based on the voluminous diaries Satow kept whilst in Japan between 1862 and 1869. As an interpreter he was present at many of the meetings between the diplomatic and military representatives of the Great Powers and of the Shogunate. Satow gives his opinions of the various officials he met, and describes the rising tensions that led to conflict between the Shogunate and the Emperor, civil war, and the reassertion of the Emperor's power. Satow's classic Guide to Diplomatic Practice (1917) is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Preface
1. Appointment as student interpreter at Yedo
2. Yokohama society, official and unofficial
3. Political conditions in Japan
4. Treaties, anti-foreign spirit, murder of foreigners
5. Richardson's murder, Japanese studies
6. Official visit to Yedo
7. Demands for reparation
8. Bombardment of Kagoshima
9. Shimonoseki: preliminary measures
10. Shimonoseki: naval operations
11. Shimonoseki: peace concluded with Choshiu
12. The murder of Bird and Baldwin
13. Ratification of the treaties by the Mikado
14. Great fire at Yokohama
15. Visit to Kagoshima and Uwajima
16. First visit to Ozaka
17. Reception of foreign ministers by the tycoon
18. Overland from Ozaka to Yedo
19. Social intercourse with Japanese officials
20. Nanao to Ozaka overland
21. Ozaka and Tokushima
22. Tosa and Nagasaki
23. Downfall of the Shogunate
24. Outbreak of civil war (1868)
25. Hostilities begun at Yedo and Fushimi
26. The Bizen affair
27. First visit to Kioto
28. Harakiri
29. Massacre of French sailors at Sakai
30. Kioto
31. Return to Yedo
32. Miscellaneous incidents
33. Capture of Wakamatsu and entry of the Mikado into Yedo
34. Enomoto with the runaway Tokugawa ships seizes Yezo
35. 1869: audience of the Mikado at Yedo
36. Last days in Tokio and departure for home
Glossary
Index.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]