The Story of Old Japan (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Story of Old JapanThe writer, in this book, has endeavoured to tell the Story of Japan from the creation to the accession of the present Emperor, when Old Japan - the Japan of feudal ism and seclusion - may be said to have come to an end and a new nation to have been born, which was destined to startle the world by a wondrous display of military, legislative and industrial progress.There are many Histories of Japan by English or American writers, and in the works of Kaempfer, translated from the German - Dickson, Adams, Griffis and Murray abundant material will be found by those who desire to form more than a general acquaintance with the subject. Those who desire to extend their inquiries still further, to acquire an esoteric knowledge of special periods, personages, or great political or economic movements, will find a storehouse closely packed with golden treasures of information in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, every volume of which contains able monographs by scholarly experts who have investigated in Japan the varied subjects with which they deal. Above all, they will find the beliefs, held by the Japanese themselves, faithfully mirrored in the exact translations of native classics, which have been made by Satow, Aston, and Chamber lain, the three great English scholars, whose knowledge of the Japanese language and literature does not fall below that of the most accomplished Japanese literati.All these works, whether histories, monographs or trans lations, are for the serious student, rather than for the lay reader, who, without leisure for painstaking studies, may still desire to possess some knowledge of the inter esting mythology and history of a country that is now playing so great a part in the theatre of the world, that is bound to our own by close political and commercial ties. It has been the aim of the present writer to supply this deficiency and to provide a narrative, in logical sequence, of all the great periods in Japanese history, written in a style which will render its perusal no greater task than that of an ordinary novel, to tell, in fact, The Story of Japan throughout the long ages of the past, just as the novelist tells the story of his own heroes and their lives. An attempt has been already made to tell this story in an even more concise manner in a series of articles in the Nineteenth Century and After. It was the interest which, the writer found, was aroused by these articles among his own associates that tempted him to use the wealth of material that was at his disposal and his own knowledge to extend the articles into the present volume.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.