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BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN: Portrait of a Japanologist. By Yuzo Ota. Surrey (England): Curzon Press (Meiji,Japan Series: 4). 1998. xiii, 233 pp. 35.00, cloth. ISBN 1-873410-73-5.
IN REVIEWING the life of Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935), one of its astonishing aspects is that it stretched from the last years of the long Tokugawa period (1603-1867) to the rise of Japanese militarism on the eve of World War II. From his arrival in Japan on 29 May 1873, to his departure for a life of retirement in Switzerland in March 1911, young Chamberlain had been witness to the last vestiges of feudal society, the exciting days of "modernization" and, finally, the Japanese state taking its place on the world stage as a major power by virtue of its military victories over China in 189495 and Russia in 1904-05. Upon leaving Japan for good in 1911, he continued his active intellectual life and witnessed the ebb and flow of Japan's relations with his native England. He kept his Japan connection alive...