This nonfiction work follows Otokichi, a sailor from Owari whose shipwreck carried him to North America, Macao, and Shanghai, placing him on the margins of East Asian diplomacy before and around Japan's opening. By reconstructing one castaway's life from limited records, it connects the Morrison incident, trade, missionary activity, and interpreting to illuminate late Tokugawa Japan from the outside.

Through a castaway's life that cannot be reduced to homesickness, the book opens another entrance into late Tokugawa diplomacy.

Written by an author living in the United States, this nonfiction work portrays Washington, D.C. through everyday scenes, setting the institutional face of a political city against the feelings and routines of the people who live there. Rather than observing the city only from the outside, it uses a resident's viewpoint to capture race, family, social life, and urban atmosphere, examining the gap between American social mechanisms and human experience.

Behind the ordered streets of the capital, the uncertainties and resilience of immigrants, families, and neighbors come into view.