Long overdue, this important first full length account in English of the history of Japan’s first foreign settlement, which for centuries was the country’s only ‘front door'to the outside world, will be widely welcomed. Following the opening of Japan’s ports in 1859, Nagasaki rapidly became one of Japan’s leading industrial centres, which included shipbuilding, but, other than the history surrounding the atomic bombing of August 1945, in the post-war period, it has been largely overshadowed by interest in the Meiji settlements of Kobe and Yokohama. Fully illustrated, the value of the work is reinforced by additional key data to be found in the appendices, including the 1866 and 1898 Directories of Foreign Residents, the 1872 List of Property being Rented, a List of Existing Cultural Assets of the Former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement and a chronology of 'Madame Butterfly and Nagasaki’.