JAPAN STORY

How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it.

Although the broad outlines of the story were familiar (as they will be to every reader) almost all the more detailed information was new to me. I thought the book was masterly in the intermeshing of the personal and the political, the quotidian and the spiritual, the psycho-analytic with the journalistic, the long-historical with the contemporary, and everywhere finding and highlighting the poetic and the aesthetic.
Neil MacGregor
Elegantly written and compelling history of Japan's past century and a half
Bill Emmott, Spectator
Lucid and lyrical ... delivered with his flair for storytelling ... one of the best accounts I've
ever read of what happens - for better and worse - when a country's relationship with the world is abruptly renegotiated.
Alex Dudok de Wit, Telegraph
Richly embroidered, well-written text ... you will profit considerably from reading Japan Story.
Christopher Ross, Literary Review