The Last Shogun

by SHIBA, RYOTAROCARPENTER, JULIET WINTERS

• ISBN13: 9781568363561
• ISBN10: 1568363567
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2004-08-20
• Publisher: Kodansha America

Summary

Ryotaro Shiba is a historical novel about the start of the Meji Restoration (1868) and the pivotal events which toppled the shogunate, bringing a 17-year-old boy emperor back from the secluded Imperial Palace in Kyoto to preside over what amounted to a political and cultural revolution.

Author Biography

RYOTARO SHIBA is one of Japan's bet-loved writers of all time. Working as a newspaper reporter, he began to write 1959 received the Naoki Prize for his novel The Owl Castle. His many works, which often present new interpretation of turbulent times such as the Meiji Restoration, have had enduring success with Japanese readers. He was named a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1981, cited as a person of cultural merit in 1991, and was conferred with Order of Culture in 1993. Shiba died in 1996.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Frank Gibney	vii
Translator's Note	xix
Maps: The Traditional Provinces and the Modern Prefectures xxi Tokugawa Genealogy	xxii
List of Characters	xxiii
1 High Hopes	1	(13)
2 Raising a Future Shogun	14	(15)
3 A Failed Opportunity	29	(20)
4 Ii Naosuke and the Ansei Purge	49	(21)
5 Entering the Pantheon	70	(14)
6 "Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself, and You Will Be Invincible in a Hundred Battles"	84	(11)
7 Drastic Action	95	(15)
8 Keiki's Charade	110	(5)
9 The Wheel of Fate	115	(24)
10 The Skirmish at Hamaguri Gate	139	(8)
11 The Death of Iemochi	147	(10)
12 The Arm-twist Drinker	157	(19)
13 The Choshu Fiasco	176	(10)
14 The Fifteenth Tokugawa Shogun	186	(13)
15 The Decision to Surrender	199	(12)
16 Retreat to Osaka	211	(12)
17 Escape and Aftermath	223	(25)
Author's Afterword	248	(5)
Glossary	253