A new book published by the University of Hawaii Press appeared recently on bookshelves in Japan. Painstakingly written by Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey, it is titled "The Dog Shogun: The Personality and Policies of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi."
This work, a solid volume of some 400 pages, is described as "exciting" and "insightful," and its author "a senior scholar of the Tokugawa Period."
Bodart-Bailey, born in Germany, was educated both there and in England. She was always concerned with the acquisition of language. Employed by Lufthansa, she was posted to the airline's regional office in Hong Kong. "I asked them to send me to Japan," she said. "I wanted to learn Japanese."