Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 [Paperback]

Noel Perrin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1988 | ISBN-10: 0879237732 | ISBN-13: 978-0879237738 | Edition: 1st

This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read. Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

Editorial Reviews

Review

Professor Noel Perrin has written an elegant monograph, magnificently illustrated with a wealth of Japanese prints. --New York Times Book Review

Through his description of one historical event in Japan s national experience, Noel Perrin has written a book as tight and elegant as haiku. The story is a fascinating one: Japan s introduction to, mastery of, and subsequent abandonment of, the gun.... Perrin s work is so crisp and interesting, and so loaded with background information and revealing anecdotes, that the whole peculiar episode it describes jumps to life from its pages. --The New Republic

This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read. --Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

Through his description of one historical event in Japan s national experience, Noel Perrin has written a book as tight and elegant as haiku. The story is a fascinating one: Japan s introduction to, mastery of, and subsequent abandonment of, the gun.... Perrin s work is so crisp and interesting, and so loaded with background information and revealing anecdotes, that the whole peculiar episode it describes jumps to life from its pages. --The New Republic

This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read. --Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

About the Author

Noel Perrin (1927-2004) was the author of thirteen books and a frequent contributor to Vermont Life, Country Journal, The New Yorker, and other magazines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: David R. Godine; 1st edition (January 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879237732
• ISBN-13: 978-0879237738
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #159,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fantasy presented as history, June 19, 2006

By 

W. D ONEIL "Will O'Neil" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (Paperback)

If you take a course relating to Japanese history of this period one of the first things they will do is warn you off Perrin. He had no real knowledge of Japanese history but got this neat idea about how he imagined it happened and then looked for facts to "prove" his point, ignoring all the things that didn't fit with what he "knew" just had to be the truth.

The fact is that guns helped the three great unifiers of Japan (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu) create a government that was strong enough to end war completely for 250 years (from 1615 to the 1860s). Guns were unnecessary and not needed, so not many were made. End of story, no mysterious Japanese reverence for the sword or resistance to modern things required.

See for instance the review by Conrad Totman in _Journal of Asian Studies_, v. 39 (1980): 599-601.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting window into Japanese history., April 5, 2001

By 

LeeAnn Balbirona (Washington state) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (Paperback)

I picked this book up for my husband, the medieval weapons enthusiast, but I found myself riveted by the story it told and read it first before passing it along to him. Not knowing much about Japanese history pre-World War II and what I'd gleaned off of looking at woodblock prints, this was a great, quick introduction to the major eras and military conflicts of the 1500-1900s.

This is not just a book about the Japanese and firearms. It's also about the long struggle of Japan to limit the influence and ideas of foreigners. From the Dutch traders being limited to living on a tiny island and only allowed to make one annual trip to the mainland, to the outlawing of Christianity and indifferance to improvements in firearms technology, it's all riveting stuff.

Sometimes the tone of the book is a bit breezy, keeping it from being too serious an academic work, but I found the author's style easy to read and enjoyable. This from a person with no real interest in guns!

If you are interested in understanding traditional Japanese culture, another book to try is "Lost Japan" by Alex Kerr. Absolutely nothing to do with artillery, but covers the rest of the fine arts of Japan.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle, January 29, 2003

By 

Peter E. Fuchs (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (Paperback)

I read Noel Perrin's little book soon after it was first published in a different imprint, but returned to it around the time of the Gulf War in 1991 to remind myself of a few things that Professor Perrin wanted us to think about. I think many readers may mistake it as primarily a book about Japanese history or about the Tokugawa clan who banned guns mainly to maintain civil order in what was a genuine police state, one they were to rule for 250 years. Though a long-time student of Japan, I shudder to think of someone like Saddam Hussein picking up a few lessons from the Tokugawas. Perrin's point, though, was peace. He wrote this book, I believe, because he was a passionate anti-nuclear activist and advocate of non-proliferation. In talking to friends, he learned how the Tokugawas had - perhaps for the only time in human history - decided to give up a weapon of mass destruction, and they did it in part because they saw it as an evil, and a threat to their martial society. Samurai were expected to live and die by the sword, though the warlords who fought it out for control of Japan in the war-filled years around 1600 that brought the Tokugawas to power were perfectly happy to use massed muskets in battles that created more carnage than would be seen on any battlefield until the Napoleonic wars. At the end of the day, Perrin's assessment of the moral purpose of the Shoguns who banned the gun is probably naive, these were power hungry and paranoid dictators who sought to prevent massed musket attacks against themselves. But the book provides a fascinating vignette of how a society reordered itself and learned to live in peace for 250 years. I consider the book one of the more elegant essays on the confrontation in mankind's history between our inexorable bloodlust, and our yearning for something more sublime.