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This week, I'm going to recommend On China by Henry Kissinger.

Kessinger is one of the most famous political scientists in American history and played a

direct role himself in the reopening of relations between Maoist China and the United

States.

His perspective on China, even when I don't agree with it, is truly fascinating and it benefits

greatly from his own experience

working with the leaders of that country. Go to, The Fall of the Samurai, Part 7.

When we left off last week, the resignation in disgrace of Hottama Siyoshi, over his failure to get the Imperial Court to approve the treaty with Townsend Harris had led to the rise of a

new leader for the Tokugawa government, Iynauske, at the time the 42-year-old Daimyo of Hikone.

E succeeded in having tremendous power concentrated in his hands by virtue of his appointment to the

post of Tyro, a sort of shadow shogun, who was answerable only to the shogun himself and who

held supremacy over the Bakufu,

the national bureaucracy of the Tokugawa government.

E himself was the oldest son of an ancient family of Fu Dai Daiyo,

those daimyo whose loyalty to the Tokugawa predated Tokugawa ascendancy over Japan.

The Yi clan had been solid allies of the Tokugawa since the 1570s, and centuries later,

E. Nauske himself was still benefiting from the loyalty of his ancestors, since that was what

...