This collection of Lafcadio Hearn's writings, including ghost stories and letters, is published to mark the centenary of Hearn's arrival in Japan. Hearn was the son of an Anglo-Irish surgeon major in the British army and a Greek mother and became famous as one of Japan's great interpreters, at a time when Japan was undergoing dramatic social change as a result of the modernization programme begun in the 1860s.

Winston Churchill described the loss of Singapore as the greatest disaster ever to befall British arms; yet, unlike Pearl Harbor, it never became the subject of an offocial government enquiry. Louis Allen analyzes the remote political causes of the Japanese campaign, gives an account of the events of the campaign, and then attempts to apportion responsibility for the defeat.