Fresh from a stint recruiting Albanians to fight the Cossacks in the Crimean War, Edward Shelley embarked for South America, to avoid tiresome (and embarrassing) Parliamentary hearings back home. Thus began a trip around the world over the next 52 months, as he searched for adventure and new scenes to explore, stopping at intervals to collect traveling money from home. Shelley found adventure in full measure, crossing the Andes, passing through revolution-ravaged Mexico, sleeping alongside an erupting Hawaiian volcano and following invading British and French armies into China; and even close brushes with death receive only laconic mention in his journal. Annotations of the journal typescript explain journal some obscure entries and provide the historical and geographical context for his travels.

This book by a leading authority on Anglo-Japanese relations reconsiders the circumstances which led to the unlikely alliance of 1902 to 1922 between Britain, the leading world power of the day and Japan, an Asian, non-European nation which had only recently emerged from self-imposed isolation. Based on extensive original research the book goes beyond existing accounts which concentrate on high politics, strategy and simple assertions about the two countries’ similarities as island empires. It brings into the picture cultural factors, particularly the ways in which Japan was portrayed in Britain, and ambivalent British attitudes to race and supposed European superiority which were overcome but remained difficulties. It charts how the relationship developed as events unfolded, including Japan’s wars against China and Russia, and in addition looks at royal diplomacy, where the Japanese Court came eventually to be treated as a respected equal. Overall, the book provides a major reassessment of this important subject.