Perry (1794-1858) was a Commodore of the U.S. Navy who commanded a number of ships and served in several wars. He played a leading role in opening Japan to the West, was concerned with educating naval officers and became a leading advocate of modernizing the Navy with the advent of steam.

Excerpt from Matthew Calbraith Perry: A Typical American Naval Officer Hazard Perry, have been multiplied. No biography of Matthew Calbraith Perry has, until this writing, appeared. In Japan, popular curiosity fed itself on amboyant broadside chromo-pictures, blood-pit novels, and travesties of history, in which Perry was represented either as a murderous swash-buckler or a consumptive-looking and over-decorated European general. It was to satisfy an earnest desire of the Japanese to know more of the man, who so pro foundly in uenced their national history, that this biography was at first undertaken. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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Matthew Calbraith Perry, also known as "The Father of the Steam Navy" for his activity towards modernization of the American Navy, was a commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War. He also played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. This book presents a biographical account of his life and deeds.