About book Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912 (2005)
Respectfully, I’ve just finished reading this remarkable book on a famous Japanese emperor and felt so awed and humble that I thought I would never write any review on this deservedly acclaimed book since it’s been authoritatively narrated, referenced and summarized by one of the great Japanologists, Professor Donald Keene who has recently been granted his Japanese citizenship and moved to live in Tokyo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_K...). Some might wonder why we should read his biography to better understand this unique country, one of the reasons is that his name has long been mentioned in terms of the Meiji Restoration due to his wise and diplomatic rule essentially destined to modernize Japan in crisis resulted by the influential shogunate and some powerful Western countries demanded the opening of the country. It’s interesting to read and know how the emperor had engaged in various imperial functions, for instance, we can’t help admiring his interest in visiting schools:… He visited a middle school where he observed classes and listened while pupils were questioned about punctuation, arithmetic, and foreign languages. He also visited a school that had been founded to teach boys and girls of the aristocracy foreign languages (English, German, and French) and manual arts, but now also admitted children of the commoner class. He gave audiences to the foreign teachers. Finally the emperor issued a rescript expressing pleasure over the devotion of the foreign teachers and his hope that they would encourage the pupils to work even harder at their studies. (pp. 214-215)
Even though I learned a lot from this brick-sized work, I was left feeling somewhat disappointed. Professor Keene himself admits that, in spite of the plethora of source material on the Emperor Meiji, it is almost impossible to get to the real man - his official biographies list what he did or who he met, but nothing about his emotional states. Most of this work is thankfully rounded out with narratives of political, social, economic and diplomatic changes in the era of the eponymous "Restoration." But Keene often feels the need to digress into the biographies of bit characters that interest him, and we don't learn nearly enough about the important figures of that critical era. Keene also insists that a better understanding of Meiji is possible through a perusal of his poetry, which I find questionable and even tedious after a while. The book could have also used a good map or two so those of us not blessed with an intimate knowledge of Japanese geography could better follow the Emperor's travels or the military campaigns described here. However, with it all, the book is beautifully-written and will reward the assiduous reader with a much better understanding of how and why Japan carried out its modernization in the second half of the 19th century, and of the man who lead that process.
Do You like book Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912 (2005)?
Keane presents the reign of Emperor Meiji in such depth that it can feel overwhelming. There's a sense that you're losing the forest for the trees, but it's in being presented the complete breadth of the Meiji Era that you come to really appreciate the scale of what was achieved. That said, Keane's singular focus on the Emperor can result in a less detailed analysis of the events themselves (particularly in respect to foreign policy), but it is what it says on the tin: a book about the Emperor and his world.
—Michael Camilleri
