This meandering tale of an interesting man's life spanning the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras helps readers understand the ferment of the times while serving up some gems of social history.
Isaku Nishimura is remembered for the homes he designed and built, mostly during the Taisho Era (1912-25), and as the founder of Bunka Gakuin in 1921, a coeducational experiment in liberal education. He grew up in Wakayama and was raised in a wealthy family with extensive forest holdings in Nara and was able to live very well off his legacy.
His comments on family life are especially revealing about changing norms during his lifetime. Nishimura's biological parents, who were Christian, died when he was 7 when the church they built collapsed on them during an earthquake. His vivid reminiscences of being an orphan, shifting from household to household within the extended family, provide an interesting window on rural life and family relations at the end of the 19th century.