I was at Oxford from the end of June 1983 to early October 1985 and my stay in Britain thus came to roughly two years and four months. 1 had so many experiences during this time that I cannot recount them all here. It is seven years now since I left Oxford and the precious memories of my younger days there come flooding back across the years. I need hardly say how valuable they have been to my way of life today.

However, as my supervisor at Oxford during my studies there, Professor Peter Mathias, wrote in the preface to the Japanese translation of his book The First Industrial Nation ‘In preparing this preface to a new edition of my book I am writing for Japanese readers about what must seem to them the other side of the world’, I too, in recording memories of my two years at Oxford, am writing in Tokyo which is on the other side of the world to Oxford. In writing this preface the thoughts, which race through my mind, are all about my enjoyable life as a student at Oxford. It was, of course, impossible in the brief two years that I lived in Oxford to grasp the whole picture of the university with its diversity and long history. However in the short period that I was at Oxford I had an unforgettable experience. I have tried, as best I can, within the limit of what a single individual can absorb, to describe what I saw, did and thought and I hope that it will contribute to better understanding.

I want to dedicate this account of my two years in Oxford to my parents who made this stay possible. Without their help and support I would not have been able to enjoy to the full the life of a student abroad.