Excerpt from Japan: The Rise of a Modern Power The accession of jimmu-tenno, in 660 b.c., as the first Mikado - the present Mikado, Yoshihito, is claimed to be the rzznd of the line - is the first date officially recognized in Japanese history. If, which is improbable, the date is correct, the Japanese royal family goes back to a period when the Assyrians were invading Egypt, the Greeks were spreading into Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy, the Romans were being ruled by kings, and our own islands and most of Eur0pe were sunk in barbarism. Assuming the date to be right, Jimmu was a contemporary of the great Greek philo sopher Thales, and lived a century before the Chinese philosopher Confucius, the Indian philosopher Buddha, and Cyrus, the founder. Of that Persian Empire whose contact with the Greeks was to have such momentous effects on European civilization. As the earliest extant annals of the Japanese - the Kojiki - were composed in A. D. 712, it is impossible to say what degree of truth there is in the traditions connected with Jimmu. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.