Nakae Ushikichi in China: The Mourning of Spirit (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

In 1914, Nakeae Ushikichi (1889-1942), gifted son of the famous Nakae Chōmin (1847-1901) and graduate ofTokyo University's Faculty of Law,left behind the opportunities opento him in Japan and went to China.He worked briefly for the SouthManchurian Railway and then inthe Yüan Shih-k'ai government,but a personal crisis in 1919 turnedhim suddenly to a life of rigorousscholarship and social criticism. Hespent most of his adult life in Peking, published little, deeply influenced a few key compatriots,and became a posthumous hero toa generation of postwar Japaneseintellectuals.

In the first full-length study inEnglish of the life and thought ofNakae Ushikichi, Joshua A. Fogeltells the strange story of this cocky,indolent carouser who became adisciplined scholar and passionateadvocate of the worth of all humanity. Fogel examines Nakae's Sinological work in the context of hiswide reading in German philosophy, Western historiography, andclassical Chinese sources. He alsotranslates Nakae's wartime diary.