Where to start?

Wanting to know more about something from the past?

If you're lucky, you find a long Wikipedia entry awaiting after typing a couple of keywords on Google. Let's start with the main object of my interest "Shinsengumi" - you have now found an entry on the military corps. After reading the page (clicking of various links on the way, just to make sure you understand what the Bakumatsu is and see what Hijikata looks like), you're now at the end of the page where you expect to find references. Hell and damnation, you realise there is absolutely nothing! Years pass and you keep checking this page, it gets longer and longer, and finally, there it is! The reference list! Sure, out of the seven 'further reading' books, five are in Japanese, but then you see them - two books written in English! You are now waiting for your delivery to arrive so you can spend your evenings learning about the "Shogun's Last Samurai Corps". 

This is exactly what happened to me between 2008 and 2012. I remember feeling so grateful for my newly acquired ability to read books in English (still nought in French). From 2012, I also spent quite some time in Japan and enjoyed many Kyoto days with my friend Yoshie. We visited temples, talked about Kondo and Hijikata, visited museums, graveyards, talked about fantasised history and what people believe happened. In 2016, I travelled from Fushimi to Hakodate by myself to trace the battles of the Boshin War with the hope that it'll teach me something.

It did help me structure my undergraduate dissertation! Titled 'Commitment to the Established Order: Tokugawa Loyalism from the Formation of the Roshigumi to the Collapse of the Republic of Ezo', it was an introduction into the complex Bakumatsu period. I unfortunately (not complaining it was self-imposed) had to distance myself from the Shinsengumi for my current Master's by Research, but we are now in 2020 and I am applying for a PhD on Bakumatsu history (and most specifically the Shinsengumi). 

Sadly, Hillsborough's book on the Shinsengumi, while still being the only complete research on the topic in the English-speaking world, is not a great academic reference. So back to searching for sources to be able to feed now-very-long Wikipedia articles (╯ಠ_ಠ）╯︵ ┳━┳

Aizu Wakamatsu, Tsuruga castle, © hanyujenkins, 2016