Customer Reviews

Famous Japanese Swordsmen: The Warring States Period

5 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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There are not many great books on Japanese military history, but this is one and I am glad to see two others are now available from the same author. The book deals primarily with the Onin wars of the Warring States period (1469-1573). If you are unfamiliar with Japanese history and are challenged reading and remembering Japanese people and name-places, you may find this a struggle. Maybe try reading Eiji Yoshikawa's "Taiko" first to get warmed up. If you are comfortable with this material, then you will really enjoy this book. My only complaint is that while deLange includes maps and shows some maneuvers, he might take a lesson from the battle maps of the publisher Osprey, as I would have liked to see better troop deployment and use a little less imagination. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this book.

If you've read these series, you know all you should about men such as Iizasa Choisai Ienao, Kamiizumi Ise no Kami Nobitsuna, Nennami Okuyama Jion, and Chujo Hyogo no Kami Nagahide. Personally I can hardly wait for Vol. 3! The really interesting thing is that these books provide a wealth of information not previously available to non-Japanese readers, including extensive historical backgrounds to the era in which these 'sword saints' lived.

the subject matter is interesting but the way it's written seems to require a greater knowledge of japanese history than the average person has. i am by no means uneducated but i was lost in many sections trying to understand the correlations of one event to another. this may have been a thesis of some sort at one point, which would explain why it seems to be written with an audience of japanese historians in mind. the book also only covers two swordsmen, which is a bit misleading given the title. i enjoy books of history and am no stranger to their dry nature, but this book was a bit hard to read.