This open access book includes forty-one chapters about foreign observers' discourses on Japan.
These include a wide range of perspectives from the travelogues of curious visitors to academic
theses by scholars which offer us a broad spectrum of contents reflecting a variety of
attitudes toward Japan. The works were written during the period from the 1850s to the 1980s a
timespan during which Japan became in stages more open to the outside world after a long
isolation under the Tokugawa shogunate. From the perspective of Japanology one can discern
three distinct periods of rising interest in the country from abroad. The first tide of such
interest came shortly after the opening of Japan when various foreign travelers including
those who could not be included in this book came over and wrote down their impressions of the
country-which was for them a land of mystery and mystique which had just opened its doors to
them. The second wave arose at the beginning of the twentieth century just after the
Russo-Japanese War when Japan again generated a remarkable surge of interest as a miracle in
Asia that had pulled off the wondrous feat of defeating a white superpower. The third wave was
more recent which took place from the late 1960s to the 1980s a period of high economic
growth when the miracle of Japan's remarkable economic recovery from the defeat of World War II
attracted enthusiastic and curious attention from the outside world once again. It is not the
intention of this book to directly highlight such historical transitions but these forty-two
brilliant mirrors (forty-one chapters including forty-two discourses) even when looked in
casually provide us with unexpected insights and various perspectives. Sh ichi Saeki
(1922-2016) was Professor Emeritus the University of Tokyo. T ru Haga (1931-2020) was
Professor Emeritus International Research Center for Japanese Studies.
