ABSTRACT
My original assignment in Japan was for two years. Interspersed with many “long leaves” it grew to twenty-three years. I liked the country and the life, gathered a library, and lived agreeably with my neighbors. I should not expect to be believed if I now said that all the people of Japan are like the people with whom this narrative has been mainly concerned. As the book closes I am teased by a feeling that it depicts only the scum on the surface of the stream. Yet though all of Japan is not in the picture-for it is still impossible to indict a nation-the Japan we are fighting is there. The young officers, the patriots and scoundrels, the bemused philosophers are the scum that reveals the force and direction of the boiling torrent. The creed of those men has been the policy of Japan since 1931.
