The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of the Japanese People,
by Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

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Title: A History of the Japanese People
From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Author: Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

Release Date: December 23, 2008 [eBook #27604]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE
PEOPLE***

E-text prepared by Geoffrey Berg from digital material generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofjapanes00briniala

A HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

by

CAPT. F. BRINKLEY, R. A.

Editor of the "Japan Mail"

With the Collaboration of BARON KIKUCHI

Former President of the Imperial University at Kyoto

With 150 Illustrations Engraved on Wood by Japanese Artists;
Half-Tone Plates, and Maps

DEDICATED BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION TO HIS MAJESTY MEIJI TENNO, THE LATE
EMPEROR OF JAPAN

FOREWORD

It is trite to remark that if you wish to know really any people, it
is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of their history, including
their mythology, legends and folk-lore: customs, habits and traits of
character, which to a superficial observer of a different nationality
or race may seem odd and strange, sometimes even utterly subversive
of ordinary ideas of morality, but which can be explained and will
appear quite reasonable when they are traced back to their origin.
The sudden rise of the Japanese nation from an insignificant position
to a foremost rank in the comity of nations has startled the world.
Except in the case of very few who had studied us intimately, we were
a people but little raised above barbarism trying to imitate Western
civilisation without any capacity for really assimilating or adapting
it. At first, it was supposed that we had somehow undergone a sudden
transformation, but it was gradually perceived that such could not be
and was not the case; an