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Period
1853–1868 CE
The Bakumatsu began when foreign powers forced the Tokugawa shogunate to abandon much of Japan’s previous restriction on overseas relations. Unequal treaties opened ports and created foreign settlements, while debate over trade and sovereignty divided domains, court nobles and samurai activists.
Supporters of the shogunate faced movements advocating imperial restoration and the expulsion of foreigners. Assassination, factional struggle and conflict between domains intensified until the collapse of Tokugawa rule and the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
Gai-Jin is set within this crisis. Its fictional Japanese leaders, revolutionary samurai and foreign merchants operate in a political world shaped by treaty ports, anti-foreign violence and the weakening authority of the shogunate.
Series
Takashi Matsuoka’s Samurai series follows Lord Genji, head of the fictional Okumichi clan, and Emily Gibson, an American missionary who arrives in Japan during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1861, foreign ships, Christian missions and political pressure are disrupting the established order. Genji’s inherited gift…
Books
Non-Fiction
Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.
