Japan

by David Murray

David Murray, an American educator who spent several years in Japan as an adviser to its Department of Education, wrote this history for general readers. As his preface says, it traces the story of Japan from its beginnings to the establishment of constitutional government. Murray describes the islands and their peoples, the myths and legends of the founding of the empire, the arrival of continental culture and Buddhism, the medieval period, the rise of the shoguns, the age of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, the long seclusion under the Tokugawa, the coming of Perry and the Meiji restoration. Clear and sympathetic, it shows how Japan appeared to a well-informed Western observer of the late nineteenth century. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.