Fletcher, Robert S. G. (2019) The Ghost of Namamugi : Charles Lenox Richardson and the Anglo-Satsuma War. Kent: Renaissance Books. ISBN 9781898823834

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Abstract

n 1862 a British merchant was killed by samurai, in uncertain circumstances, at Namamugi – a quiet village near Yokohama. One year later, a British fleet bombarded the port of Kagoshima to extract reparations, reducing much of this south-western city to ash.

The Ghost of Namamugi is a captivating re-telling of this story, locating it firmly within the wider context of British imperial expansion in East Asia. In his introduction, Robert Fletcher explains how it was that the death of one young man led to the partial destruction of a city. He explores how competing contemporary images of the victim at Namamugi, Charles Lenox Richardson – to some a martyr in the cause of free trade, to others the embodiment of a bullying merchant class – have served to justify and to lament Britain’s bombardment ever since.

Making use of previously unpublished sources, The Ghost of Namamugi presents, for the first time and in full, Richardson’s personal correspondence home. Written across ten years spent living and trading at Shanghai, the Richardson letters give readers a chance to form their own judgement of the man at the centre of a nineteenth-century “outrage”.

Item Type:	Book
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Publisher:	Renaissance Books
Place of Publication:	Kent
ISBN:	9781898823834
Official Date:	2019
Dates:	Date Event 2019 Published
Number of Pages:	246
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Related URLs:	Other

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