title: Inventing Japan by: Buruma, Ian published: 2003-02-04 read: 2022-10 preview

A book on the history of Japan between 1853 and 1964.  In 1853, before which Japan was closed for foreigners (except for a single Dutch trading post; I learned about that in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet), a fleet of American ships with cannons forced Japan open for trade.  They sought, I think, a place to store their treasures or replenish their ships or something.  At least it worked, and a new part of Japanese history, away from the samurai state with capitals Kyoto (the capital to the west, where the divine emperor resided) and Tokyo (the capital to the east, where the shoguns, leading the Samurai, resided).  I may be wrong in the details – I recite all of this from memory and I read this book a while ago – but the principle is rightish.

The book explains the trip from Geisha Japan to a state in which the Emperor did not stop the state it was in WW2, or may even have supported it (no one really wants to know).  I think the book gives a good start in understanding why Japan is such a strange country, wedged until today between the old and the new.

Recommended read, but not always a ball.