A Yankee in Meiji Japan: The Crusading Journalist Edward H. House.

A YANKEE IN MEIJI JAPAN: The Crusading Journalist Edward H. House. By James L. Huffman. Lanham (Maryland): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2003. xvi, 310 pp. (B & W photographs, figures.) US$60.00, cloth, ISBN 0-7425-2620-8; US$24.95, paper, ISBN 0-7425-2621-6.

Readers familiar with James Huffman's earlier works will recognize his continuing fascination with the newspapers and journalists of Meiji Japan, but in this book he shifts his focus from Japanese journalism to an American journalist who devoted his life to defending Japan's interests. Huffman's highly readable account of E.H. House's life will appeal to a wide audience, but especially to non-specialists, and by focusing on a sympathetic observer of Japan, Huffman has found an effective vehicle for exploring a number of interesting themes in the history of the Meiji period: Japan's modern transformation, the subtle intellectual interchange between Westerners and Japanese that eased Japan's entry into international society, the quirky nature of the expatriate community in Meiji Japan, and, foremost to Huffman, the particulars of House's life. Huffman has presented us with more than a simple biography, as his book also provides insights into the formative period of Japan's modern foreign relations and into the mutual fascination that Japanese and Americans had for each other in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Huffman openly acknowledges his decades-long interest in House, but despite his enthusiasm for his subject he has been professional in his scholarship. His well-crafted narrative situates House's life very effectively in the history of the Meiji period. Huffman begins the book with an account of the Maria Luz incident that took place two years after House arrived in Japan. The incident, a footnote in Japan's diplomatic history, gave the Meiji government an opportunity to assert itself in the Western diplomatic community by taking a principled stand against the coolie trade. Huffman presents the incident as a defining moment in House's career, where his journalistic interests shifted from Japanese culture to politics, and where he took up his crusade against "Japan's treatment at the hands of the imperialist powers" (p. 13). The narrative then backtracks and explains House's childhood, his early journalistic success as a music and literature critic, and his wild years gadding about with journalists and writers that included Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte and Artemus Ward. Huffman then proceeds with linked narrative accounts of House's life and the history of the Meiji period, alternating between meticulously researched chapters about different phases of House's life and overviews of Japanese history during the same periods. The chapters on Meiji history cover little new ground, their purpose being instead to provide the context necessary for understanding House's experiences in Japan. They succeed admirably at that task.

The narrative becomes less compelling in later chapters as House's career declined and Japan modernized. Huffman attends to House's declining fortunes and his diminished influence in Japan with the right touch of pathos and personal interest, but the resplendent government-sponsored funeral House received at his death in 1901 reveals how highly the Japanese government regarded him. Most journalists, including better ones than House, fade into genteel obscurity before dying all but forgotten. Why did House receive such a splendid send-off? Simply put, he was an agent of the Japanese government. Huffman acknowledges this fact elsewhere in the book, but his fondness for House sometimes leads him to understate how thoroughly involved House became in defending the interests of the Japanese government. To his credit, Huffman scrupulously provides a full range of evidence about House, and that permits readers to draw their own conclusions about House's motivations.

In sum, Huffman's biography of E.H. House is a fine case study of an American journalist who lived unapologetically as an admirer of Japan and defender of Japan's interests, and whose life reveals much about the distinctive processes of cultural hybridization that typify the Meiji period.

ROBERT ESKILDSEN

Smith College, Northampton, MA, U.S.A.