Abstract

64 HISTORY: Reviews of New Books helped ensure the ultimate success of Lockley, Thomas and Geoffrey Girard Valignano, seeking alliances with feu- democracyinTaiwan. African Samurai: The True Story of dal lords in Southern Japan, finally The larger question this book asks Yasuke, A Legendary Black arranged an audience with Nobunaga its audience to consider is whether the Warrior in Feudal Japan in Kyoto, the imperial capital. Dark- Toronto, ON: Hanover Square Press PRC can ever follow Taiwan in creat- skinned and more than six feet tall, 480 pp., $27.99, ing a truly apolitical People’s Yasuke cut quite a figure when he ISBN: 978-1-335-14102-6 Liberation Army. PLA resistance to arrived in Kyoto and threw the city Publication Date: April 2019 sending regular troops—reservists into a near riot as the Japanese rushed from Inner Mongolia who did not to see the “giant with black skin” The authors paint a vivid picture of speak Mandarin were deployed (122). In Kyoto, Valignano presented instead—to destroy the Tiananmen Japan during one of its most volatile Yasuke to Oda Nobunaga as a gift. demonstrators in June 1989 suggests periods, the Warring States Era, when Part 2, “Samurai,” recounts that this process was also well under-