From our twenty-first century perspective, the post-Meiji Restoration period of Japan's breathtakingly swift modernization is a fascinating time. Many of the Japan-related essays in The Phoenix are superb commentaries accurately reflecting the turbulence of the era and offering the reader a vivid understanding of developments during these years. Prominent contributors include Dairoku Kikuchi (later president of Tokyo Imperial University, now the University of Tokyo), Arinori Mori, and British Japanologists Ernest Satow and William George Aston.