2006 Scholar's Bookshelf reprint edition. A still-indispensable study of the role of sea power in modern Japanese history, with special perspectives on the character of Admiral of the Fleet Count Togo and the close identification of his spirit and the spirit of Japan. The work traces Japanese naval thought back to Perry's time and forward through all the major actions at the Yalu, the Pescadores and Formosa, Port Arthur, the Yellow Sea, and Tsushima, documenting the growth of Japanese naval power, Togo's central role in strategy and technology, and the coming to international naval power of Japan as the twentieth century dawned. First published in 1936, the work includes the author's warning about the ""hand-writing on the wall"" represented by Japan's emergence at Tsushima.