It is a tribute to Sir George Sansom's urbane wisdom and great knowledge that so much of the confused period he covers in the second volume of his history of Japan is given a shape; his account always brings out the varied qualities in Japanese civilization that were being moulded by these events. The period is aptly summed up in the quotation from Tacitus which he offers as a clue : rich in disasters, dreadful in its battles, rent by its seditions and cruel even in its peace