To begin at the beginning, Charles Ralph Boxer was born in 1904 to a distinguished British family of considerable means. Educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst, he seemed destined for a military career following a family tradition that had seen Boxers serve in command positions in every British war since the French Revolution. He was posted to Japan in 1930 where he first developed his interest in Portuguese imperial history following the disastrous incursion into Japan in the 17th century. In 1936 he was sent to Hong Kong where by 1941 he was the chief army intelligence officer; wounded in the Japanese attack on Hong Kong he was captured and held as a prisoner of war until 1945 and his entire collection of rare Portuguese-related books was seized by the Japanese for the Imperial Library.* After his release he returned to Japan in 1... [more A Bibliophilic Miracle]