William Elliot Griffis, educator and clergyman, first came to Japan in 1870. Like Lafcadio Hearn, he was originally sent to the provinces (Fukui), but after less than a year had made his way back to Tokyo Imperial University, where he gathered materials for what would become his major work, his history of the "Mikado's" empire. It was published in 1876 and is thus among the first outside books on the country. It was quite popular: By 1912, it had gone through 12 editions. The volume under review is a facsimile of the 1895 eighth edition -- minus the illustrations. Long out of print, it is as instructive as it ever was.
The reason is that such full histories of Japan are now rare. The territory has been so academically domesticated that each scholar digs in his own patch. Now, 100 years after this Griffis history was published, it would be a rare scholar who sat down to write a history that encompassed both the mythological age and the contemporary era.
One of the reasons for this is the tendency of scholars to specialize. Another, however, is that so much more is now known that putting it all down (let alone interpreting it) would be difficult. Griffis had it a lot easier. He made mistakes, but he was able to grasp the limbs of his subject and draw a fairly accurate anatomy.
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