This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read.

Product details:
8 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
Paperback

Reviews:

Professor Noel Perrin has written an elegant monograph, magnificently illustrated with a wealth of Japanese prints. --New York Times Book Review

Through his description of one historical event in Japan s national experience, Noel Perrin has written a book as tight and elegant as haiku. The story is a fascinating one: Japan s introduction to, mastery of, and subsequent abandonment of, the gun.... Perrin s work is so crisp and interesting, and so loaded with background information and revealing anecdotes, that the whole peculiar episode it describes jumps to life from its pages. --The New Republic

This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read. --Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

Through his description of one historical event in Japan s national experience, Noel Perrin has written a book as tight and elegant as haiku. The story is a fascinating one: Japan s introduction to, mastery of, and subsequent abandonment of, the gun.... Perrin s work is so crisp and interesting, and so loaded with background information and revealing anecdotes, that the whole peculiar episode it describes jumps to life from its pages. --The New Republic