Intelligent, lucid and marxist-tinged analysis of the forces in Japanese society that lead to the Meiji restauration and beyond. Some hardcore scholarship in here, with tons of obscure sources cited, especially Japanese ones. There's really so much interesting hard-to-find infirmation in here, absolutely great book and it still holds up fine despite it's age. The parts where Norman was off due to lack of information in his time are ironed out by the essays at the end of the book. Definitely give it a read if you are interested in Japan and deep political and economical analysis.