Prince Saionji Kinmochi (1849-1940). The Japanese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference did not have the Japanese prime or foreign ministers with them as they had only just been elected and had plenty to do back home. The delegation was instead led by Prince Saionji, the dashing 'kingmaker' of early 20th-century Japanese politics whose life spanned the arrival of Commodore Perry and his 'black ships', the Japanese civil war, the Meiji Restoration, the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, and the rise of Japanese militarism. Unlike many of the conservatives of his day, Saionji was a man with experience of international diplomacy and admiration for European culture. Brought up in the days of the last Shogun, he became an active supporter of Japan's new ruling regime, after the Shogun was overthrown in a civil war, and a leading figure in the post-Restoration reform movement. In 1869 he founded the institution that would become the Ritsumeikan University - literally, 'The place to establish one's destiny'. He was sent to France for nine years to investigate Western technology and philosophy, and served for a decade as a Japanese ambassador in Europe. Returning to Japan, he served twice as Minister of Education and later became prime minister before resigning to become a revered elder statesman. Japan entered the First World War on the Allied side, seizing German possessions in China and the Pacific. In the closing days of the war, Japanese military forces participated in the Siberian Intervention - an American-led invasion of eastern Russia against Communist insurgents. At the Conference Saionji's presence was initially regarded by the Japanese as a sign that Japan had become a fully-fledged member of the international community and accepted on an equal footing with the Western Powers. His delegation introduced a controversial proposal to legally enshrine racial equality as one of the tenets of the League of Nations. The Japanese were also keen to grab colonies of their own, and went head-to-head with the Chinese delegation over the fate of the former German possession of Shandong. When Shandong was 'returned' not to China but to its Japanese occupiers, riots broke out in China. Despite Saionji's statesmanship and diplomacy, the Treaty of Versailles was regarded by many Japanese as a slap in the face. Saionji's influence weakened in his last years, while his party was dissolved and amalgamated with others.

This volume of the Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan series, published under the Japan Library imprint, collects the work of Richard Storry on contempory issues and the history of Japan.

This unique volume comprising writings and memoirs covering the half century since the end of the Pacific War, offers the reader a fascinating and remarkable collection of personal experiences of Japan across a wide spectrum.

First Published in 2005, but published originally in 1938 on the eve of the Second World War, this work focuses on the last member of a distinguished group of genros, or elder statesmen, who participated in the wars of the Meiji restoration and in 1889 under Emperor Meiji, drew up the Imperial Constitution on which the Japanese political system was based. Prince Saionji was the president of the Privy Council, the second president of the Seyukai party, twice Prime Minster and Japan's Chief Delegate to the Paris Peace Conference.

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

A comprehensive and often controversial account of Japan's foreign and security policy before the Second World War based on War Crimes Trials materials, original Japanese sources, and detailed accounts by Japanese historians. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ozaki Yukio, who was returned to his seat in the Japanese Diet twenty-five times, served in that body from its inception in 1890 to 1953. He was several times a cabinet member and, for ten years, mayor of Tokyo. A strong advocate of representative government, he both witnessed and propelled Japan's transformation from a late feudal society to a modern state. His autobiography, available in English for the first time, gives an insider's account of key episodes and leaders over seven decades of Japanese history. Ozaki's political life spanned the Meiji rise to power and Japan's defeat in World War II, and he played a significant role in each phase of that epic. As a young reporter, he gained preeminence with incisive calls for supremacy in East Asia. A European trip that showed him the devastation of World War I converted him to advocacy of arms reduction and international cooperation. He watched with dismay as Japan encountered isolation and military disaster. Known for the courage of his convictions, he became a marked man, carrying a death poem in his pocket. His sturdy independence survived the American Occupation, as he deplored his associates' readiness to heed occupation dictates. Ozaki's story reverberates with the immediacy of his personal knowledge of every major Japanese political figure for three-quarters of a century. It is the account of a man who made history as well as writing it. His story is the story of modern Japan. Through it, readers will gain first-hand knowledge of Japanese constitutional history, one with rich relevance for contemporary Japanese politics.

Saionji Kinmochi was an aristocrat, a scholar and a progressive liberal politician who twice occupied the highest political office in the nation and who, during three decades, as adviser to three Emperors, coordinated and directed Japanese politics. His long life encompassed the emergence of the modern Japanese state, the establishment of the constitution, the integration of Japan into the inter-war, international community and the creation, and subsequent erosion of the democratic process. The story of his twilight years chronicles the conflicts between the goals of liberalism and internationalism which dominated Japanese politics in the 1920s and the right-wing militarism which held sway in the years leading to the Pacific War. He was a central figure in the turbulent, formative period of Japan’s political ideology.