Status Updates From 明治天皇：1852—1912

Japan’s trajectory towards representative government was a difficult one. The emperor emerges from these pages as supportive but not outspoken; approving in principle but not necessarily in practice. Willing to take a stand, but only if it is absolutely necessary.

At this point it is striking that the government wanted to invest heavily in education, but had competing views between those who wanted to emphasise traditional Confucian values and those who wanted practical Western learning. Both sides feared Western philosophy and political ideas and wanted to minimise its influence.

The Japanese politics of the Meiji era were fiendishly complex, and the young emperor navigated it discreetly and tactfully, which speaks volumes for his common sense. So unlike his father! The “Meiji Restoration” was as radical a revolution as the French Revolution, and the young emperor kept his head, literally and figuratively. But he does moves through the pages of his biography like a ghost, intangible.