午夜剧场

The first time I studied abroad in the United States was in 2005. I was writing a biography of Nagamoto Okabe, who studied at 午夜剧场 in the early Meiji era before going to the U.S. to study at Yale University, and I worked hard to collect materials on him at Yale.

The opportunity for my second study abroad in America came in 2013. I was affiliated with Harvard University, and since I had come all the way to America, I resolved to conduct research that could only be done locally. What I set my hand to then was collecting materials regarding the Japanese people who studied at Harvard, the neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale during the early Meiji era.

Regarding Ryoichi Inoue, one of the first Japanese to graduate from Harvard University, my mentor, Dr. Yutaka Tezuka, has already written an excellent study. Since Inoue graduated from the Law School, I looked into the case of Harvard College and found that there were two: Jukichi Kikkawa and Gizaburo Nakahara. Materials at the university reveal that Kikkawa maintained his relationship with Harvard even after graduation and devoted himself to academic exchange between Japan and the U.S., such as contributing to the establishment of the Japanese Civilization course at the university.

The first Japanese to graduate from MIT was a railway engineer named Eiichiro Honma, but the second was Takuma Dan, who would become the head of the Mitsui Zaibatsu. Many materials regarding him remain, and it was discovered that during the Russo-Japanese War, he worked alongside Harvard's Kentaro Kaneko on public relations diplomacy to turn American public opinion pro-Japanese. Shigetoshi Yoshihara, the first Japanese to enter Yale, would become the first Governor of the Bank of Japan.

Based on the results of such material research in America, this book considers what Meiji-era students in America learned there and what impact they subsequently had on Japan-U.S. relations. Starting with the stowaway of Jo Niijima at the end of the Edo period and leading up to Yosuke Matsuoka, who served as Foreign Minister in the second Fumimaro Konoe Cabinet, many students went to the U.S. and were involved in Japan-U.S. relations in various ways, from public relations diplomacy during the Russo-Japanese War to the outbreak of war between Japan and the U.S. Kaneko, who occupies a central role, changed his attitude from pro-American to anti-American and passed away during the Pacific War.

I hope that readers interested in America and international students will trace the footsteps of these students who wove approximately one hundred years of history.

Masamichi Ogawara

Bunshun Shinsho

256 pages, 968 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and job titles are those at the time of publication.