You’re absolutely right about the rest of them: I’d be particularly interested in a real “new military history” look at the social and institutional development of the military.

We’ll have to talk about the Meiji book, for sure. Once one of us has tenure, maybe?

- A serious study of the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement
- The creation of the modern Japanese soldier – there’s literature on military culture and indoctrination starting in the 20th century, but the early Meiji seems like an important formative period with unique challenges
- Trains as transformative objects, in both senses of the word
- A biography of Katsu Kaishu – if there is one life that encapsulates the early Meiji era
- How Okinawa became Japanese – I mean legally, not culturally
- How Edo became Tokyo – culturally for this one
- The Sino-Japanese war from the Japanese perspective – Everything I’ve seen was from the Chinese side
- Hokkaido development and the displacement of the Ainu

Let me know if you want a co-author on that Meiji book.

I would think that a study of the former daimyo could be one way of getting at the post-abolition samurai question. The trick might be getting at family archives: my impression is that most daimyo families still exist in some form or another, and still control their own documents, especially for the post-Restoration. The overwhelming impression I’ve gotten is that they went into dignified retirement, with their descendants becoming military, scholars and layabouts, as well as family historians, depending on their personal proclivities.