The Image of Japan: From Feudal Isolation to World Power, 1850-1905 by Jean-Pierre Lehmann

From Feudal Isolation to World Power 1850-1905 Jean-Pierre Lehmann During the years from the opening of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the first World War, the Western view of Japan changed dramatically. At first Japan was seen as the glistening jewel of the Orient, a country with an ancient civilisation at once mysterious, gentle and savage - a place to dream about and also one which could be exploited by the new empires and industries of the West. But by the end of the century Japan had been transformed in the Western mind into something altogether more sinister, and its people, courted by the West only a decade or two earlier, had now become characterised as "the yellow peril". This absorbing book tells the story of Japan's Modernisation, as recorded by contemporary Western writers, and brilliantly portrays the changes in