Katsushika Hokusai's 1831 woodcut "Under the Wave off Kanagawa," popularly known as "The Great Wave," occupies an iconic place in modern visual culture. Looking at the socio-cultural context in which Hokusai's iterations of this motif were first produced and consumed helps to explain why this image was singled out from the "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" of which it was a part. Waves served to express a range of ideas, practices, and even materials associated with the West. Their heroic forms became critical sites for exploring Japan's shifting geopolitical circumstances, especially the country's vulnerability to foreign invasion.