In its favour, Kenneth Henshall's book is very readable and not too long. It's also accurate enough that it got lukewarm praise even from its academic reviewers who were highly critical. The main problem is that it's a 215 page book about the entire history of Japan, and the first 69 pages cover pre-history to 1868. It should be obvious that it's really a history of late modern Japan, and the pre-Meiji Restoration material is largely there to support the modern history.

As mentioned, the academic reviews of the book from pre-1868 scholars were not very positive. Gary Leupp draws attention to this mystifying statement in Henshall's introduction which SCREAMS that he hasn't interacted much with Japanese historiography.

Nowadays there is a vast amount of material available in English, not only works written originally in English but translations of just about every major Japanese work. As a result, it is perfectly possible for the English-language reader to gain a very informed understanding of even detailed matters about Japan.

Would that it were so. tears It'd make my English-only-reading life a lot easier.

Henshall's approach to a lot of the pre-1868 history is to highlight the values and qualities of the Japanese that he thinks carried on into the 20th century, and so informed events like WWII and the economic miracle. This is actually my biggest issue with Henshall's book. It makes the reading easier and more entertaining, and it all seems to match up, but it's really cherrypicking things that match, while ignoring things that don't match. There are also a number of inaccuracies and omissions throughout the text.

But it isn't the worst book. It's not even a bad book. It's fast, entertaining, and might be a good introduction to keeping Japanese history straight in one's mind. I'm not personally recommending it, but I can see its attraction, while hoping its readers move on to a real history of pre-1868 Japan.

As for alternatives, I wrote a post about Japanese history recommendations for general readers here which may be helpful.