Volume 31 Issue 10 October 1981

For over two centuries from 1641, Nagasaki – and the island of Dejima – was the only place in Japan open to foreigners. How were Europeans received there?

John Robinson looks at the sorry state of a London monument

Maggie Black continues her cultural history of food with a look at preserves.

Though the real inspirations are obvious, James Clavell’s Shogun ‘exaggerates and often distorts the historical reality’ of feudal Japan.

John Vincent asks a key question of the Conservative politician.

W.G. Beasley continues our special feature on Japan: The Closed Country, with a look at the late 19th century Japanese diplomatic mission to the west.

Richard Holmes continues our series with a look at the Problems of Military Biography.

The Shoguns’ castle in the Imperial City. 

Irene Coltman Brown argues that Lord Acton foresaw that the course of modern nationalism, no longer subject to moral law, 'will be marked with material as well as moral ruin'.

Neither the Greeks nor the Romans paid much attention to the achievements or customs of the peoples that they conquered. As Jenny Morris shows here, in the case of their Jewish subjects this indifference caused problems that had both religious and political repercussions.