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Yankee in Meiji Japan
James L. Huffman
€ 151.64
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Description for Yankee in Meiji Japan
Hardback. This work covers 19th-century Japan through the life story of Boston journalist Edward H. House (1836-1901), America's first regular correspondent in Japan. It covers Japan's use of public relations as a diplomatic tool, the contentious relations of the expatriate community, and US-Japan relations. Num Pages: 328 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: 1FPJ; 1KBB; 3JH; HBJF; HBJK; HBLL; JPS. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 237 x 154 x 21. Weight in Grams: 558.
This unique book introduces nineteenth-century Japan through the compelling life story of Boston journalist Edward H. House (1836-1901), America's first regular correspondent in Japan. House's accomplishments were breathtaking in variety: shaping the reputations of John Brown and Mark Twain, influencing American attitudes toward Asia, persuading Congress to return a massive indemnity to Japan, editing Tokyo's earliest English-language newspaper (Tokio Times), constructing a powerful case against imperialism, and introducing Western orchestral music to Japan. House's experiences also illustrated many of the era's key themes: Japan's use of public relations as a diplomatic tool, the contentious relations of the expatriate community, the role foreign advisors played in Japan's drive toward modernity, and the complicated nature of U.S.-Japan relations. The book captures the human drama of a special breed of early journalist. It recounts the bohemianism that made House and his friends (e.g., Walt Whitman, Artemus Ward) notorious. It narrates his tender, tortured relationship with Aoki Koto, a girl he adopted when she was on the verge of suicide. It shows a courageous struggle with gout, including 20 years in a wheelchair given to him by the powerful Okuma Shigenobu. And it details a deep friendship with Mark Twain, which eventually was destroyed by a dispute over The Prince and the Pauper. Twain's unpublished 50-page manuscript on the experience, Concerning the Scoundrel E. H. House, is introduced here for the first time. Meticulously researched, the book draws on House's voluminous writings and on hundreds of letters between House and major figures in both America and Japan, including Mark Twain, U.S. Grant, John Russell Young, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Okuma Shigenobu, and Inoue Kaoru. With its lively, accessible prose and seamless interweaving of the life of House with the history of the Meiji era, this book will be welcomed by students, scholars, and general readers interested in modern Japanese history and in America's nineteenth-century foreign relations.
Product Details
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2003
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield United States
Number of pages
328
Condition
New
Number of Pages
328
Place of Publication
Lanham, MD, United States
ISBN
9780742526204
SKU
V9780742526204
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-15
About James L. Huffman
James L. Huffman is H. Orth Hirt Professor of History at Wittenberg University.
Reviews for Yankee in Meiji Japan
This well-written book will not only interest specialists of Japan but will be fascinating reading for anyone interested in history. Highly recommended.
CHOICE
James Huffman's well-written biography of the American journalist Edward House is a welcome addition. . . . A detailed, factual narrative that flows smoothly, allowing the reader to follow House's life as it is set against a complicated historical background.
Persimmon
James Huffman's earnest and compelling, also meticulously researched, story reveals a huge amount about Western attitudes toward Japan in the Meiji era, also about Japanese methods of making itself more of a presence in the international arena. Beautifully researched and a lively read, this is a major contribution to the historiography of Japan–U.S. relations.
The Daily Yomiuri
A Yankee in Meiji Japan is at once an engrossing biography of a nineteenth-century American journalist and an absorbing history of Japan in the initial stages of its modern transformation. As a pioneer interpreter of Japan for the English-speaking world, E. H. House struggled against stereotypes of exoticism to represent the country he loved as progressive and civilized. Huffman offers a fascinating and innovative account of the interaction between personality, press, and politics. This is history at its best: superbly crafted, painstakingly documented, and brilliantly written.
M. William Steele, International Christian University Huffman's highly readable account of E. H. House's life will appeal to a wide audience, but especially to non-specialists, and by focusing on a sympathetic observer of Japan, Huffman has found an effective vehicle for exploring a number of interesting themes in the history of the Meiji period.
Pacific Affairs
Huffman has provided a well-researched life of the Yankee of his title, Edward H. House.
Journal of Asian History
A century later Professor Huffman has dispelled the obscurity which enshrouded the life and work of a man who was a Yankee, an American, a pioneer in the development pf American-Japanese friendship, and an unsung hero who fought valiantly against a crippling disability. We are in his debt.
John M. Maki, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
CHOICE
James Huffman's well-written biography of the American journalist Edward House is a welcome addition. . . . A detailed, factual narrative that flows smoothly, allowing the reader to follow House's life as it is set against a complicated historical background.
Persimmon
James Huffman's earnest and compelling, also meticulously researched, story reveals a huge amount about Western attitudes toward Japan in the Meiji era, also about Japanese methods of making itself more of a presence in the international arena. Beautifully researched and a lively read, this is a major contribution to the historiography of Japan–U.S. relations.
The Daily Yomiuri
A Yankee in Meiji Japan is at once an engrossing biography of a nineteenth-century American journalist and an absorbing history of Japan in the initial stages of its modern transformation. As a pioneer interpreter of Japan for the English-speaking world, E. H. House struggled against stereotypes of exoticism to represent the country he loved as progressive and civilized. Huffman offers a fascinating and innovative account of the interaction between personality, press, and politics. This is history at its best: superbly crafted, painstakingly documented, and brilliantly written.
M. William Steele, International Christian University Huffman's highly readable account of E. H. House's life will appeal to a wide audience, but especially to non-specialists, and by focusing on a sympathetic observer of Japan, Huffman has found an effective vehicle for exploring a number of interesting themes in the history of the Meiji period.
Pacific Affairs
Huffman has provided a well-researched life of the Yankee of his title, Edward H. House.
Journal of Asian History
A century later Professor Huffman has dispelled the obscurity which enshrouded the life and work of a man who was a Yankee, an American, a pioneer in the development pf American-Japanese friendship, and an unsung hero who fought valiantly against a crippling disability. We are in his debt.
John M. Maki, University of Massachusetts at Amherst