Customer Reviews

A Diplomat in Japan

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If you are interested in Japanese history this is a great book. It gives a firsthand account of events between 1862 and 1869 from the perspective of a foreigner, which covers the very important period of Japan opening to foreigners and the overturn of the shogunate. Sir Ernest Satow was witness to many of the important events that formed modern Japan in his function as a translator for the British Consulate. The book reports his various travels through Japan as an official, his interactions with members of the different Japanese clans, negotiations between the foreign representatives and the Japanese government, including the first audience with the Mikado granted to foreigners. The book makes history come alive and fills it with real-life people. It also shows firsthand the difficulties of foreigners in understanding the very different culture of Japan, at a time when there wasn't even proper teaching material to learn the language (not even a dictionary) to make this process easier. A great book for anybody who wants to further his or her understanding of Japan.

Satow describes in detail Britain's diplomatic involvement in the opening of Japan and Meiji Restoration. He was a junior member of the diplomatic corps at the time, but as one of the first English-Japanese interpreters in the British foreign service attended many important meetings. As a history of events as they occurred in this interesting period in Japan the book is unrivalled.

The mere fact that this book has been through many paperback editions since it first appeared as a hardback published in London by Seeley Service in 1921 is on its own a powerful testament to its enduring fascination. This edition is the latest in a long line, and this reviewer hopes that it will never go out of print. (As a Kindle edition has recently been produced this seems unlikely, unless the Kindle itself heralds the end of printed books!)

What is the secret of its popularity? First, it is an eye-witness account by an acutely sensitive and intelligent insider, which many would argue is one of the best kinds of history. Based mainly on his diaries, it depicts not only the political situation of Japan, but also the social conditions of a society on the threshold of an enormous change: the Meiji restoration.

The eyes are those of a sympathetic Westerner who was able to master the Japanese language in a time when there were hardly any text books available, and who later became one of the foremost japanologists of the 19th century. (Of course this is to say nothing of his subsequent career as a top British diplomat and the original author of the Guide to Diplomatic Practice, now in its 6th edition pubd. 2009.)

Ian Ruxton, editor of A Diplomat in Japan, Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870-1883 and several other Satow-related books which are also available on amazon.

This is a classic, and deservedly so. Sir Ernest Satow's record of the late Tokugawa shogunate and its overthrow by the Meiji Restoration from the point of view a young student interpreter who later became interpreter and then Japanese Secretary to the British legation in Edo (now Tokyo) is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand this turbulent and fascinating period of Japan's history. Based chiefly on his diaries ("journals"), it was begun in Bangkok where Satow was Minister in the late 1880s and completed at last in Satow's retirement in England. It was first published in 1921, in London and New York. A distinguished and perceptive observer at all times, this is probably Sir Ernest's best and best-known work.

Ian Ruxton, editor of Sir Ernest Satow's Private Letters to W.G. Aston and F.V. Dickins: The Correspondence of a Pioneer Japanologist from 1870 to 1918 (Paperback), also available on amazon.