One of the better Japanese Meiji period books my professor gave to me to read for a premodern Japanese history class was Mark Ravina's To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History. Any Ravina work is well regarded, but this one stuck out to me and is a pretty good start because its newer; published in 2017 so it has a very well-dated bibliography.

The book itself is more specifically about the Meiji Restoration and how its pioneers struggled to balance the perpetuation of traditional forms of culture and governance with new innovation and the willingness to get out there and engage more broadly in the world. So this seems pretty up the alley of what you're looking for. That being said it is a bit esoteric, so it might be a bit tough to read through. But Ravina does focus on certain issues of Japanese legitimacy and government in pre-Meiji Japan, so that can help someone new to the field. Here is a brief review about the book from an academic probably better versed in Japanese history than myself.

If you decide to read it, enjoy!

Yes. I actually gave a few book recommendations recently, which half the time either included or were about Meiji / modern Japan.

I'd suggest to get an overall survey history (spontaneously I'd suggest Nancy Stalker's Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool, its the most recent undergrad textbook out there and it seemed decent; my impression was that its very much emphaszing culture over politics though). It's, I believe, on JSTOR and possibly accessible depending on the subscriptions you have access to via your institution; the same applies to Brett Walker's A Concise History of Japan, which institutions might be subscribed to via Cambridge Core. I can't comment on the latter though since I haven't read it (I Just have access to it ha ha ha).

You could also check out Huffman's Japan in World History, but I can't elaborate on it either because its just comfortably sitting around in my amazon shopping cart.

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For Modern Japan, the go-to surveys, as far as I am aware of, were all released around the turn of the millenium, with James McClain's Japan: A Modern History seeming the first choice of the bunch out there, although Andrew Gordon's A Modern History of Japan also got generally favorable reviews. [both authors have a different angle, so its not like either makes the other entirely superfluous]

But if those feel insufficient, you could also go for Marius Jansen's magnum opus Making of Modern Japan. Its for the time when you feel that 300 pages are not sufficient and you'd rather have 871. This is also on JSTOR and you might be lucky and your subscription has obtained access to it.

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But beyond this, Modern Japan / Meiji, is, from my impression, by far the most popular period in English-language Japanese history (I often sarcastically remark, likely because it requires less skill to read the sources than premodern history does, and I might not even be entirely off the mark with this); so, whereas its possible to recommend something specific, it's difficult to recommend anything beyond the surveys - and I don't think you might want or need, for now at least! - without knowing the direction to head into.

However, as far as further reading concerning foreigners and 19th century Japan goes, I'm going to also throw in these two, because institutional subscriptions might actually give you access to the respective ebooks:

Plutschow, Herbert. Philipp Franz von Siebold and the Opening of Japan: A Re-Evaluation. Kent: Global Oriental, 2007.

Sterry, Lorraine. Victorian Women Travellers in Meiji Japan: Discovering a 'New' Land. Kent: Global Oriental, 2009.

They're not for the casual reader though, I'm almost certain both are originally doctoral dissertations.