Customer Reviews

Bushido: The Soul of Japan (The Way of the Warrior Series)

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"Bushido: The Soul of Japan" is an interesting book, outlining the codes and ethics of the Samurai warrior class of Tokugawa era Japan. Much like the code of Chivalry of European Knights (of which the book makes comparisons), Bu-shi-do (Military - Knight - Way) lays down stringent rules of behavior towards superiors and inferiors, of behavior in battle and in peace, as well as the minute of life, all as a way of taming and ordering this privileged warrior class which sprang from the most brutish, most barbarian roots.

Written in 1900, the book uses the writing style common at the times. "Bushido" was written as a means to educate an educated Western audience about the soul of Japan and eliminate common prejudices towards the Japanese civilization. As Nitobe writes for a 1900s Western educated audience, he takes it for granted that the reader is familiar with Shakespeare and often uses Shakespearian characters as mouthpieces for the Western point of view. "As Iago said...."

Nitobe does an excellent job explaining the code, and uses fables and examples to illustrate his points. He clearly sees the value in this military way of life, and waxes poetic from time to time. There are no insights into modern Japan to be gained from "Bushido," anymore than you can understand modern London by reading "Le Mort D'Arthur." It is, however, a great resource for understanding historic Japan and the Samurai cast.

The Bushido - the Warrior's Way - is one of the wonderful, unique features of Japanese culture, still important in the modern world. It has inspired many books, spanning several centuries. This book, written around 1905, is distinctive for being addressed to a Western audience.

It was written by a Japanese scholar in Europe, educated (possibly over-educated) in Western ways. As a reader of my own era, I would say that bushido can only be understood in the terms that it sets out. The reader must knock down the Western tradition, from medieval mythos forward, and accept wholly Asian premises for the bushido to make sense. This author, instead, tries to describe the bushido in Western terms. The result is paltry and grotesque.

Nitobe is a product of the bushido, and I am not. He is also a product of the late 19th century, writing in the first few years of the 20th, and writing with English learned at the end of the Victorian era. He explains the bushido in terms of the Old Testament, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Cervantes. He speaks eloquently to his audience, men who are rigidly Christian and just plain rigid.

I find an unhappy desperation in this book, where the author tries to justify a profoundly Japanese culture in un-Japanese terms. This was the era just after Legge, Hearn, Burton, and FitzGerald. There was an influx of Eastern culture, but it was filtered so that proper English could disuss in their own terms. I am afraid that the filter stopped out all that was truly Japanese.

The serious sudent should read this book, but not to understand Japanese culture. Instead, the reader should try to understand the Western culture that this book addresses. Even now, we are afflicted by Victorian translations of Eastern classics. This book, working from East to West instead, shows just how dire that affliction had become.

//wiredweird

I am a Japanese graduate student, aged 24, who studies molecular biology. I would like to add to the excellent reviews so far that this book is full of insights to understand not only historic Japan but also Japan and Japanese people at present.

The first reason is that most Japanese know Nitobe's name, face and act of writing this book. It is because his portrait was featured on the 5000 Yen banknote printed from 1984 to 2004.

The second reason is that many leaders at present, including, as far as I know, Masahiko Fujiwara, a mathematician, who wrote a recent Japanese best-seller titled Kokka no Hinkaku (Style of a nation) and some professors in my department's faculty, admire this book.

The third reason is that, though modernization and westernization wiped out the great fraction of Bushido customs, its spirits prevail in the minds of Japanese people. You may ask 'How is it possible without Bushido customs?', as M. de Laveleye, a Belgian jurist, asked Nitobe in the preface of the book, 'How do you impart moral education without religion?'. The answer, Masahiko Fujiwara points out, lies in people's reading classics, such as Genji Monogatari, Heike Monogatari, poems by Matsuo Basho and so on. In fact, as I see it, Bushido characteristics mentioned in this book, rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, the duty of loyalty, and self-control, still remain in Japan.

I agree with Dr. Fujiwara in general, but, I regard Manga (comic books) and Anime, now summed up as Otaku or Akihabara culture, as the main source of the Japanese moral for the younger generations. People of my age did not read much of original classics, when they are children. Instead, we have been surrounded by and soaked with many classics reproduced as Manga or/and anime (eg Nihon Mukashi Banashi (Japanese folklore), Asaki Yumemishi (Genji Monogatari), Vagabond (the story of Miyamoto Musashi, a famous Samurai), and so on). Some people despise Manga as picture books, but it is not. It is a powerful media of information that is easy to read and, therefore, rapidly, widely, and voluntarily read. So, Bushido spirits prevail in the minds of Japanese people much more deeply than you imagine.

For the reasons above, I assure you that reading this book will greatly enhance your understanding of both historic and present Japan and Japanese people.

This book is highly relevant to Japanese society today, and I'm glad that at least some reviewers have noted that fact. Nitobe writes in a style one would expect from a man educated in the manner of Edwardian England, but that does nothing to detract from what he says. It may give the impression that his message is dated, but the opposite is true: he writes clearly and directly and his laconic gems of expression lead straight to a solid undertanding of the modern Japanese heart. He manages to pull off this feat by using apt comparisons to our Western pre-Christian heritage, primarily comparisons to pagan Rome and Greece, writers like Tacitus, Polybius, and Aristotle. Nitobe also often quotes Shakespeare and the likes of Carlyle, Nietzsche, and Emerson, but almost always as an extension of his use of classical literature. If a Western reader wants to know what Western culture would have looked like without the Judeo-Christian ethic, this book is likely a window directly into that alternate universe. Under the best outcomes, Bushido appears as something like a combination of the spirits of Athens and Sparta in harmony.

As a retired US Army officer living in Japan (off and on for the last 34 years), married into a Japanese family, witness to the raising of my daughters in the Japanese way (as Nitobe says, "to be able to hold their own against unexpected odds"), there is no doubt in my mind that Bushido is alive and thriving in modern Japan. When I was a teacher at the US Military Academy, we used this book in some elective philosophy classes to convey to students how Confucianism has become, over the centuries, the dominant influence in the Japanese way of life. Bushido adds to Confucianism healthy measures of resourcefulness, self-reliance, and emotional stamina within the central concept of filial piety. Emphasis on these virtues adds up to a character that values patience and self-control as its principal strengths in a personality whose purpose-driven-life is one of respect. It is hard, even for the most jaded cynic, to not have soaring admiration for the average Japanese person, at least those who have been steeped in this mighty tradition.

Many find it hard to imagine that such a culture could have spawned the war crimes and abuses witnessed in China and Korea during WWII. What most do not know is that the Japanese soldiers were the most chivalrous people on Earth in the early 20th century (during the Russo-Japanese War four years after this book was written). People who feel exploited and betrayed react with virulence and frequently end in moral failure; witness our own history of war crimes which even today we are loathe to own up to. There is no paradox. What Bushido does is foster an excellent environment for the possibility of a strong and honest character--that is what is most compelling about it.

I recommend reading this book with a copy of Aristotle's Rhetoric near to hand. Between the two the reader will never want for moral guidance and will be able to dispense with any library of self-help books or religion.

Not only does this book provide the philosphy behind Japanese culture, this philosphy still offers a reasonable ethic to live by. Certainly I do not recommend seppuku (ritual suicide) as component of a healthy value system. But rectitude(justice), courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor, loyalty, education, and self-control are healthy values which Bushido is based on.

This book is not for everyone, Nitobe assumes the reader is well versed in the classics of western literature, philospophy and relgion. This facility would be common to college graduates of the 19th century, these days we do not receive such a broad liberal arts education. I found I had to do some self education to understand his finer points...yet I am the better for it.

Not only did I learn more about Japan and Japan's place in world history, through Nitobe's analysis I became more aware of my own culture and it's standing relative to the rest of the world.

As a martial arts student I am facinated by this topic and make a willing audience. I purchased this book as a present for my instructors and have read it myself.

Although we all enjoyed the content and found it facinating we all found the book difficult to read. It requires knowledge of literature and politics from the period in which it was written and the explanations are not as straight forward as other works on this topic.

I think it is a good book to read to gain an understanding of the code of behaviour embraced by the Samari and the reasoning behind it but only if you are prepared to persist through the more difficult parts of the book.

Bushido: The Soul Of Japan, A Classic Essay On Samurai Ethics by educator, cultural interpreter, and League of Nations Under-Secretary-General Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933) is the reprint of a historic and respected work originally published in 1900. Nitobe discusses the Japanese concept of "bushido", also known as "the way of a warrior" as an ethical and meaningful system which emphasizes honor, loyalty, courage, and benevolence. Nitobe's classic treatise then contemplates the future of this martial and ethical discipline. Very strongly recommended reading for students of Japanese cultural history and the martial arts, Bushido: The Soul Of Japan is a powerful presentation and a moving book with ideas as relevant today as they were 100 years ago.

Nitobe has written a good and useful primer on the subject of bushido, presenting both a history and explanations into easily digestible small chapters. Although I was already familiar with some aspects of bushido of which he wrote, it is nonetheless useful to have a handy guide in which things are laid out systematically. I might suggest that this is a good guide for martial artists to help understand the culture behind their arts.

This book is written in the style common to turn of the century European and American expository texts. It's bombastic, with cumbersome allusions to ancient Greek and Roman histories. I get the impression that back then this helped establish your credentials as an educated author, but now it comes off as forced and unnecessary.

The book doesn't really provide much information on what Bushido was, or how it was practiced. The author paints in broad strokes, discussing the grand theory behind Bushido (e.g., Loyalty, Honor), without ever really describing what these words meant to a samurai, or how Bushido was practiced in day to day life. He provides only a few stories of characters thought to embody these virtues, and how they expressed them. I would have liked to have read a lot more of these. In the end, you're left with a collection of general virtues, without understanding the specific behaviors associated with them.

Finally, what I disliked most about this book is the fact that the author seems extremely defensive. He takes the perspective that Europeans thought the Japanese were a savage and warlike culture, that they had really good reason to think that way, but- wait- Bushido had a couple good points, too. A number of times in the book he basically apologizes that Bushido, as a moral code, couldn't live up to Christianity, and is hopeful that the Japanese people will accept Christianity as a more adaptive belief system than Bushido. He also seems to twist the interpretation of Japanese philosophical writings so that they're comparable to Western ones, like saying, "See, we thought of that too." All in all, you feel as if the author is trying to say that Japan is just as good as Western countries because they are so similar, when I wanted to read about Bushido as a worthy moral code unique to Japan.

While there were a few interesting stories and insightful descriptions, overall this book is uninformative, boring and just not worth the read.

Nitobe was Japanese in origin but having spent many years in the Western world and studied in Western universities, his mindset has drifted away from--don't know if it ever adhered to-- the "Japanese Way". Personally, the feeling I got while reading this book was similar to listening to a politician speaking in public or an intellectual speaking about art and philosophy. The words may be eloquent but you get the feeling that the person doesn't really know what he's talking about or doesn't really feel it no matter if he tries.

I shouldn't be harsh with mr Nitobe though because he didn't write the book for people like me. I had been training in Japanese martial arts for some years and read the book to gain some insight into the spirit of Bushido. No, this book isn't written for people like me.

In Greece, Nitobe's Bushido is translated by a politician who at some point was Minister of International Relations! You know the type: born into a family of rich politicians he never worked in his life. The kind of people who are students until they are 45 years old and study economics in Geneve, Sociology in Oxford, something else in America, something else somewhere else, etc. The kind people that speak in the usual artificially elaborate and intellectual way, so that everyone knows how cultivated the speaker is. Nitobe belongs to this group of people and the book is made to appeal to this society. By the end of the book I no longer felt any surprise to the fact that a Greek politician translated a book on the Japanese spirit. This book is written by an "intellectual" for "intellectuals".

So is this book any good? Well, some passages are quite interesting and there are some nice stories, which is why I give it two stars. If you don't read it, I honestly believe you won't miss anything. The book is written for "cold" people and tries to intellectualize matters of the spirit. If you are not an intellectual and have not an academic interest in Japanese culture, my opinion is that the book is not worth it.

If you want to get a glimpse of the warrior spirit of feudal Japan, a book that I would recommend as less intellectual and more soulful is Furuya's 'Kodo'. Hatsumi's 'Essence of Ninjutsu' has also great philosophical points. These two books are supposed to be martial arts oriented but I would easily recommend them to my friends, mom, kids, anybody.