This panoramic study is a magnificent achievement that addresses virtually every dimension of Japan's modern history from the 17th century to the present, towering above all other works of its kind. In lucid and lively prose, McClain (history, Brown Univ.) analyzes major trends in politics, the economy, society, culture and the arts, foreign affairs, and almost every other conceivable aspect of Japanese society. He is both landscape painter and miniaturist, illuminating core trends with the telling anecdote and the personal stories and travails of ordinary people as well as the high and mighty. His pages devoted to social history, which cover workers, women, minorities, and outcastes, are particularly fine. McClain is no mere chronicler of events. He provides a finely shaded, deeply intelligent, and eminently fair assessment of a country whose historical legacy has shadowed it throughout its often tortuous transformation from a semifeudal polity to a modern state. A sympathetic but detached observer, McClain makes the history come alive for students and general readers alike.