Hi Peter,

Certainly for my son, but I would say the responsibility I most felt has been on one hand to be as entertaining and illuminating as I can, as I'm asking people to go on a very long journey with me, but also on the other to honor the facts, to be as historically accurate to the large historical events that I'm describing as humanly possible.

For one reason or another, this is a history that has been largely ignored in the West, and when it has been addressed in novels, as in things like Shogun, or The Last Samurai, the actual history has been pretty much ignored. For many people, including me to a large extent, this will be people's first introduction to it. It's the kind of book that has people googling names and events to see if I made it up, and from the beginning, that was my desire—to get people interested enough in the story that they take a personal interest, and I've been gratified that that has happened a lot already. More than one person has said that it's entirely transformed their understanding of the 20th CE!

I'd be honored to answer questions