It is surely the role of a book title to explain to the reader what the book is about, and not to present a grammatical puzzle. The misuse of the preposition ‘of’ is odd, as it was not the invasions that were doing the writing. One might suggest ‘Historiography’, but that would also be unsatisfactory because this book is not in fact about the historiography of the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281. Vitale’s interest is somewhat broader, focussing on the cultural afterlife of these invasions and on how the successful defeat of Khubilai Khan’s (r. 1260–1294) repeated attempt to invade was interpreted in subsequent periods of Japanese history, mainly the early modern and modern periods, in the service of a series of constantly shifting ideological and political agendas. In this sense, Mongol invasions play a similar role to that of the Spanish Armada in the history of Britain: such events quickly become a baseline for future generations to play with as they please. The author has taken on a difficult task, requiring a broad knowledge of developments across a considerable stretch of time, so she is perhaps to be forgiven if there are times in this book when the sheer amount of information she provides threatens to become its own justification to the extent that the invasions themselves sometimes seem to get lost in the detail.

Vitale establishes six broad categories with which to fashion her discussion: culture, locality, genealogy, status, class, and nation. Perhaps the least successful of these is the first, ‘culture’, but this is not necessarily her fault because it is well-trodden ground, not least by Ron Toby, who is given due recognition. It is a discussion of how the Mongol threat acted as a catalyst, kick-starting a process by which the various provinces that occupied the territory we now know as Japan slowly began to create a clearer sense of being part of a larger identity—of being different together. The process begins, of course, by naming and identifying the Other (which may be a plurality). Here, Vitale is interested in ‘the transitions leading from flexible and malleable territorial and ethnic boundaries represented by the ka’i model of the world to modern territorially and legally exclusive notions of state membership’ (p. 29). In other words, she wishes to study the shift from Tokugawa to Meiji by using the changing role of the Mongol invasions as a pivot. The majority of what follows covers such topics as ‘the Land of the Gods’ (shinkoku), the ‘divine wind’ (shinpū/kamikaze), terms used to identify the ‘barbarians’, the palimpsest created by the Manchu invasion of China proper and the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in the seventeenth century, and the use made of the invasion topos during the Bakumatsu period. Little of this is new, but it forms a necessary foundation for what follows.

We find rather newer ground when the angle shifts to the second chapter, on locality, which investigates how certain places that were associated with the invasions in the Fukuoka area were dealt with in Tokugawa-period gazetteers—in particular, those produced by Kaibara Ekiken and Matsushita Kenrin. Here, we are introduced to a fascinating environment in which almost everything becomes the subject of dispute and disagreement. Where did certain events happen? Where were the stone walls built? Where did the Mongol fleet actually meet its end? It is a reminder of how difficult it was to pin down even the most basic information. Being a practical man of science, Ekiken searched for evidence both on the ground and in books. We learn much about the liveliness of debate, and the importance of gazetteers and their function in bolstering the self-image of the locale. Post Meiji, of course, the role of locale shifts, and what used to be proof of the centrality of what seemed to be liminal, became reinterpreted in light of Japan’s new interest in owning what lay across the sea.

For genealogy, Vitale chooses the case of the Nabeshima house, showing how important genealogies were during the Tokugawa period and how, in the context of the provinces of Chikuzen and Hizen, proving one’s connection to a warrior who fought the Mongols became a special mark of importance. Here, in particular, we find an inevitable limitation in the way in which the author has chosen to deal with her topic: the emphasis that is placed in this chapter on the role of genealogies under Tokugawa rule threatens to reduce the Mongol invasions themselves to a mere dot on the horizon, which again brings into question the title of the book. This is all a bit unfortunate because the scholarship is exemplary and its quality is not in question.

Similarly, ‘status’ is essentially an opportunity to provide a detailed discussion of the picture scroll that illustrates the invasion—the Mōko shūrai ekotoba—and to give an account of its history as a prized possession that endowed the owner with status. In ‘class’, the main emphasis is on the Tokugawa period and, in particular, the work, Sankō Mōko nyūkō ki, by the local physician, Tsuda Genkan. This is where we finally we meet historiography proper, for here we have the first example of what would now normally be considered a ‘history book’ dealing with the invasions. Vitale follows this up with a treatment of other histories of the event by means of which knowledge of the invasions becomes the common property of an increasingly educated and literate society. Without such a foundation, the influential interpretations of the Mongol invasions post Meiji would not have been possible. The last chapter, on ‘nation’, brings the discussion fully into the Meiji period and shows how what was introduced in the first chapter, namely the germination of the concept of ‘Japan’, finally developed into what can legitimately be called the ideology of a nation state.

This book is full of interesting detail and the author is to be congratulated on bringing together such a wide range of information, but no book is perfect, and this is no exception. In this instance, I suspect that my complaints should be laid at the door not of the author, but of the editor (or perhaps the copyeditor), who must have been asleep on the job. One or two kanji do appear (pp. 55–58, 85) but this book suffers quite badly from a lack of kanji; it would also have been much improved by the addition of a glossary or, if not that, then at least the addition of kanji in the index. There is an odd mixture of Korean Romanisation systems (Koryŏ appears with Baekje, p. 46) and, in addition to the unfortunate title, the English language could have been checked with greater care. Those on board may drown, but in English ships do not drown, they sink (p. 84).