Mutsu Munemitsu and his time / Okazaki Hisahiko ; translated by Noda Makito.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Okazaki, Hisahiko, 1930-2014, author.

Contributor:

Noda, Makito, translator.

Series:

Japan library (Shuppan Bunka Sangyō Shinkō Zaidan)

Japan library.

Standardized Title:

Mutsu Munemitsu to sono jidai. English

Language:

English

Japanese

Subjects (All):

Mutsu, Munemitsu, 1844-1897.

Mutsu, Munemitsu.

Diplomats--Japan--Biography.

Diplomats.

Japan.

Japan--Foreign relations--1868-1912.

International relations.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

350 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First English edition.

Place of Publication:

Tokyo : Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC), 2018.

Language Note:

Text in English.

Summary:

"Toward the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, Mutsu Munemitsu was ousted from his home Kishū-han as a result of his father's defeat in a power struggle. To avenge this, Mutsu bolstered his talent to become a man of "genius and learning in equal measure." He joined the Kobe Naval Training Center founded by Katsu Kaishū and, later, Kaientai, a trading and shipping company and private navy founded and managed by Sakamoto Ryōma before the Meiji Restoration was accomplished. During the Meiji era, Mutsu fully exercised his extraordinary ability, including working to revise unequal treaties with Western powers as foreign minister. In his last days, he scrambled to end the First Sino-Japanese War; his efforts resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki with favorable terms for Japan. Mutsu also helped Japan ride out the subsequent wave of the Tripartite Intervention from Russia, France, and Germany. This book's author, a career diplomat himself, traces the footsteps of modern Japan's diplomacy by reviewing the philosophical and political journey of this extraordinary diplomat who protected the dignity of Japan as a modern nation throughout his professional life" -- United summary from book.

Contents:

Father and son : at the apex of eighteenth-century culture

Date Munehiro in exile (Jitoku-ō) : intellectual pilgrimage of an Edo dignitary

Meiji restoration : into the age of revolution and gun smoke

Giant wings broken : the rise and fall of a Prussian-style military state

A bush warbler in winter : involved in Tosa's adventure

Burning the midnight oil again : study during imprisonment

Burning the midnight oil a third time : in a Prussian-style constitution appropriate?

The origins of Japanese democracy : building a modern nation-state

The dawn of constitutional government : a Samurai democracy to be proud of

First setback for the parliamentary democracy : bloody intervention in the election

Revision of treaties : freedom from half a century of humiliation

Rivalry on the Korean Peninsula : one imperialism vs. another

The Donghak peasant rebellion : is Korea a tributary to Qing China?

The eve of the first Sino-Japanese War : tenacity

A war of diplomacy : keeping the Western powers at bay

The Battle of Pungdo : dawn of an empire

Japan sails to victory : China's strategic dilemma

The final phase of the ware : a race against time

The treaty of Shimonoseki : Li Hongzhang in Japan

The Tripartite Intervention : an unavoidable concession

Mutsu's death : fighting for democracy to the last.

Notes:

"The original English translation is based on the paperback version of 'Mutsu Munemitsu to sono jidai,' published by PHP Institute, Inc. in 2003; first published in hardcover by the same publisher in 1999"--title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-337).

ISBN:

9784866580258

4866580259

OCLC:

1030443708