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. 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 Renters, a list of cultural assets remaining today in the former Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, and an outline of the connection between the opera Madame Butterfly and Nagasaki.