Japan Encountered: A Brief (and Highly-Selective) Survey of Famous Westerners in the Land of the Rising Sun

Japan Encountered is a series of sixteen essays on famous Westerners in Japan from the mid-sixteenth century to the present. Here, Japan is seen through the eyes of various outsiders at widely divergent points in Japanese history. The individuals included are: St. Francis Xavier, Will Adams, Dr. Engelbert Kaempfer, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, Townsend Harris, Lafcadio Hearn, Isabella Bird, William Smith Clark, Frank Lloyd Wright, Arthur Waley, Joseph Grew, General Douglas MacArthur, Ruth Benedict, James Michener, and Edwin Reischauer. Also included is a chapter which examines the experiences of American baseball players and sumo wrestlers attempting to pursue their sports in Japan, one of whom is Jesse Kuhaulua, the first American to successfully compete in the Japanese sport of sumo.