Baron Suematsu in Europe during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) His Battle with Yellow Peril

A companion volume to 'Baron Kaneko and the Russo-Japanese War' (Lulu Press, 2009), this book relates the story of Baron Suematsu's one-man campaign in Europe using the spoken and written word against the dangerous bogey of Yellow Peril which fueled European paranoia about China and Japan. Kaneko and Suematsu had similar missions, though Kaneko who was sent to the United States was also tasked with persuading President Theodore Roosevelt to broker a peace settlement in due course, while Suematsu was more directly involved in the fight against Yellow Peril which originated in Europe, and with strengthening the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Kaneko was a lawyer with a knowledge of economics, while Suematsu was a historian with a literary bent who produced the first ever English translation of 'Genji Monogatari'. Both men were also politicians and close to the Meiji oligarch Ito Hirobumi. They were the two prongs of Japan's first ever public diplomacy initiative, and both succeeded to a considerable degree.