This book revises the conventional wisdom about the Anglo-Japanese relationship in the late nineteenth century that these two countries were bound by mutual sympathy and common interests, and therefore the common ground which led to the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, had already existed in the 1880s. Such understandings fail to take account of the fact that the Qing dynasty of China had emerged as the strongest regional power in East Asia by reasserting its influence as the traditional suzerain of the region in the years prior to the First Sino-Japanese War. The British and the Japanese governments clearly recognised that it would become difficult to maintain their interests in East Asia if they antagonised the Qing by challenging its claim of suzerainty over Korea. It was difficult for them to come to closer terms when their priority before 1894-5 was to maintain good relations with China, and when they were also experiencing numerous diplomatic difficulties with each other.

This book examines reconciliation between Japan and the UK, exploring the development and current state of Japan-UK relations from the perspectives of economic cooperation and conflict, common concerns in the international system, and public and media perceptions of each country.

A Familiar Compound Ghost explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse, or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city. In this scholarly and suggestive study, Brown identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. A Familiar Compound Ghost traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction and poetry. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld.

The continuing success of this series, highly regarded by scholars and the general reader alike, has prompted The Japan Society to commission this fourth volume, devoted as before to the lives of key people, both British and Japanese, who have made significant contributions to the development of Anglo-Japanese relations. The appearance of this volume brings the number of portraits published to over one hundred. The portraits cover diplomats (from Mori Arinori to Sir Francis Lindley), businessmen (from William Keswick to Lasenby Liberty), engineers and teachers (from W. E. Ayrton to Henry Spencer Palmer), scholars and writers (from Sir Edwin Arnold to Ivan Morris), as well as journalists, judo masters and the aviator Lord Semphill. In all, there are a total of 34 contributions.

Opium Regimes draws on a range of research to show that the opium trade was not purely a British operation, but involved Chinese merchants and state agents, and Japanese imperial agents as well.

This new study examines the history of the relations between the British and Japanese monarchies over the past 150 years. Complemented by a significant plate section, with many rarely seen historical photographs and illustrations, together with supporting chronologies, this volume will become a benchmark reference on the subject.