First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Parkes ruled the British legation to Meiji Japan with a commitment to work and the construction of a civilian Japan which aroused profound admiration and irritation among both Westerners and Japanese. First major study of Parkes since the Dickens/Lane-Poole 'Life' of 1894.

The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1600-1930, consists of parallel essays by Japanese and British academic specialists covering comprehensively the history of relations between Japan and Britain from the first contacts in the seventeenth century to the present. This study, and its companion, Volume 2, demonstrates that, in the political-diplomatic sphere, while there have been periods of serious disagreement, there has been on the whole a relationship of harmony and mutual understanding.

Comprehensive coverage of the diplomatic history in Japan of H.M. Representatives and the events that marked their period of office.

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.

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.

A further 20 studies of key personalities, including Edmund Morel, Alexander Shand, Lafcadio Hearn, Rev. Dr. John Batchelor and, more recently, Shigeru Yoshida and Christmas Humphreys.

This second collection under the 'Biographical Portraits' title, incorporates a further 20 studies of key personalities, including Edmund Morel, pioneer railway builder in Meiji Japan, Alexander Shand, an important figure in the development of Japanese banking, Lafcadio Hearn, the great interpreter of Japanese culture, Rev. Dr. John Batchelor whose work with the Ainu people of northern Japan is legendary and, more recently, Shigeru Yoshida, Japan's first post-war prime minister and Christmas Humphreys, founder of the Buddhist Society.

This text traces the history of three Far Eastern embassies through the vicissitudes of war and revolution against the background of an apparent steady decline of Western influence in Asia. Dr Hoare tracks the key events and people shaping the British view of Asia. Key 'dramatis personae' are Sir Harry Parkes, British Minister to Japan, China and Korea; Sir Ernest Satow, the student interpreter who became Minister in Tokyo and Peking, and in more recent years, Sir Charles Eliot, lover of big cars and scholar of Buddhism. This book will interest those wishing to know more about all aspects of Britain in East Asia, whether in the tense years of the Boxer troubles in China, during the wartime repatriation of Britons from Japan and the Japanese Empire, in the traumas of the Korean War, or during the excess of China's Cultural Revolution.

Little serious work has been done on the policies towards Japan of countries other than the US or Britain in the seminal Meiji period. This study looks to fill this gap by investigating French policy from the opening of Japan to the Japanese triumph in the Sino-Japanese war.