In Meiji Restoration Losers, Michael Wert offers a highly readable study of the complex politics of regional memory in modern Japan, providing insight into the role of what Carol Gluck has termed “memory activists.” Wert does this primarily through the tragic figure of Oguri Tadamasa (1827–68), a high official in the Tokugawa shogunate who received additional notice for being executed by imperial forces in the turmoil of the Meiji Restoration. Wert's study is broadly chronological, tracing the contested commemoration and construction of Oguri's memory through to the early twenty-first century. In this context, the book examines several parallel strands, including the remembrance of Oguri's contemporaries Ii Naosuke (1815–60) and Saigō Takamori (1828–77). Wert also weaves into his narrative the fascinating story of the legendary Tokugawa treasure hoard that Oguri supposedly buried near his home in modern-day Gunma Prefecture, and which has occupied adventurers and treasure hunters from the early...

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