Comprehensive coverage of the diplomatic history in Japan of H.M. Representatives and the events that marked their period of office.

PAPERBACK The diplomat Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) left many important papers (diaries and letters) in the Public Record Office (now the UK National Archives). This book is a complete and unabridged collection of his semi-official ('demi-official' in the contemporary jargon) private letters as Her Britannic Majesty's envoy to Japan (1895-1900) and China (1900-1906), with an introduction by noted Foreign Office historian and East Asia expert J.E. Hoare and annotations by Ian Ruxton. These handwritten copies of letters carefully recorded in the author's Letter Books have been transcribed into book form for the first time ever by permission of the National Archives. The aim is to make these valuable documents more easily accessible to scholars and students worldwide. Also available on the amazon websites.

This latest volume of leading figures in the history of Anglo-Japanese relations offers a classic menu of personalities, themes and events (in all 25 contributions). Contents include the writings of the Cambridge scholar Carmen Blacker and leading historian William Beasley; British military observer and Times reporter of the Russo-Japanese War General Sir Ian Hamilton; philosophers Arnold Toynbee, Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw; the Chosu students Inoue Kaoru and Yamao Yozo who were later key figures in the Meiji period modernization of Japan; and Walter Dening, scholar and missionary. Subjects treated include horse breeding and horse-racing, the Japanese influence on British architects, the beginnings of golf in Japan and Japanese gardeners in Britain.

Commissioned by the Japan Society as the companion volume to British Envoys in Japan, 1959-1972 (2004), this collection of essays on a century of official Japanese representation in the United Kingdom completes the history of bilateral diplomatic relations up to the mid-1960s, concluding with Ambassador Ohno Katsumi’s highly successful six-year assignment in 1964. In all, twelve authors, half of whom are Japanese , contribute to the work. In addition to the nineteen biographies, there are essays on the history of the Japanese Embassy buildings in London, an overview of Japanese envoys in Britain between 1862 and 1872 by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, as well as aspects of embassy life which illuminate some of the factors impacting on the life-style of residents in London in former times, including an entertaining personal memoir by Ayako Ishizaka of ‘A Diplomat’s Daughter in the 1930s’. By way of appendix, the volume concludes with a short history of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) up to the present day.

There is no doubt that this sixth volume in the Japan Society’s highly regarded Britain and Japan series contains many ‘long overdue’ essays of leading personalities with links to Britain and Japan that will be welcomed by the researcher and general reader alike – from the opening essay on Churchill and Japan by Eiji Seki, to the concluding account by Rikki Kersten of the distinguished intellectual liberal Maruyama Masao’s close relationship with Richard Storry and Oxford in particular and his interests in Britain in general. Containing a total of thirty-three entries, thoughtfully and painstakingly compiled and edited by Hugh Cortazzi, there may well be a case for arguing that the best has been kept until last. Indeed, by way of an ‘Envoi’ the book concludes with an account of the Beatles visit to Tokyo in 1965, including a facsimile report for H.M. Government by the British Embassy’s then first secretary, Dudley Cheke. Also of special interest are Hugh Cortazzi’s portraits of Morita Akio and Honda Shoichiro , as well as John Hatcher’s fascinating record of Ian Fleming’s 1959 five-week visit to Japan on behalf of the Sunday Times. The volume is divided up thematically and includes an Index of Biographical Portraits published to date by the Japan Society, and by way of appendix, a highly significant report by Robin Mountfield on the Nissan Negotiations of 1980-84, which resulted in the biggest foreign investment in car manufacturing in Britain.

The diaries begin with Satow's journey home from his last diplomatic post in China. He travels via Japan, Hawaii, mainland United States and the Atlantic to Liverpool. In 1907 he attends the Second Hague Peace Conference as Britain's second delegate. He settles with some ease into rural life in Devon, keeping busy with local commitments as a magistrate, supporter of missionaries etc. and launching a major new career as a scholar of international law. The Foreword is by Professor Ian Nish of the LSE.

This is the third volume in a series of private letters written by Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) to his close friends. Volume One comprises his letters to Japanologists William George Aston and Frederick Victor Dickins. Volume Two consists mainly of letters to and from John Harington Gubbins who had worked under Satow in Japan. In this third volume Satow mainly discusses international law (law of the sea in wartime, Versailles peace treaty etc.) and the current political situation in the UK and Europe, a far cry from his East Asian focus on Japan which monopolised Volume One, and was still evident in Volume Two. (Lord Reay had no experience of Japan in his distinguished career.) The expert foreword is by Dr. J.E. Hoare, formerly of H.M. Diplomatic Service and a Teaching Fellow at S.O.A.S.