Beate Sirota Gordon was born in Vienna, but in 1929 her family moved to Japan so that her father, a noted pianist, could teach, and she grew up speaking German, English, and Japanese. In 1946, at age twenty-two, she helped to draft the new postwar Japanese constitution. This title chronicles the unlikely string of events that led her to that role.

As the only child of a renowned Russian Jewish pianist, Gordon grew up in the cosmopolitan world of the concert tour, then--fleeing her home in Vienna with the onset of Nazism--settled with her parents in Japan of the 1930s. She worked in General MacArthur's headquarters; helped draft the women's rights section in Japan's new Constitution; and later carved out a career bringing to America some of the more exotic performing arts of Asia. 36 photos.