Customer Reviews

The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori

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Ravina's The Last Samurai is an excellent study high on specifics in an academic subject which is often superficial and generalized. It's not a book about generals, tactics, and weapons, but a look at an idealistic and passionate man who also happened to be a samurai.

Casual readers should know right from the start that this book is an academic text with extensive annotations and a large bibliography. It is not a difficult book to read, but a fuller knowledge of Japanese history would give the book a richer historical context in which Saigo Takamori lived. With that said, I only wish Ravina had included a substantive biographical glossary of the people with whom Saigo lived and communicated. The importance of people like Okubo, Kido, and Itagaki are far understated in the text. A minor peeve are the date notations which can be confusing at times, but it reflects Ravina's conscious decision to put accuracy at the forefront of his research. Historical method is certainly the defining characteristic which makes The Last Samurai a definitive text in English (as well as in Japanese, when and if it ever gets translated).

One would have wished for a more complete examination of the alleged assassination attempt on Saigo's life for it is offered as a critical pretext for his revolt against the Meiji government. If the conspiracy to take his life were conclusively true, then Saigo could be seen as reacting in self-defense to preserve not only the independence of the Satsuma fief, but also his personal honor. If untrue, Saigo could just as easily be accused of supporting an opportunistic rebellion.

But in a book about as romanticized a figure as Saigo Takamori is in Japanese culture, my biggest worry from the onset was that Ravina would have been just as drawn as past biographers to perpetuate the standard myths about Takamori's life. But Ravina challenges the legend and brings Takamori down from the heavens and places him profanely on the battlefield where he perishes in ignominious defeat. Like Matsumoto from Zwick's film (same name, but not based on Ravina's book), much is made of Takamori's pull between tradition and modernity. Ravina's book is encouraging in that the author is not afraid to tell us what we, as a sympathetic reader, would be afraid to hear. What that is can be found quite appropriately in the book's last paragraph.

For those who have seen The Last Samurai (the movie) but want to know the REAL story of the last samurai, read this book.

Nick Jamilla, author of Shimmering Sword: Samurai, Western, and Star Wars Sword Fighting.

The Tom Cruise movie, "The Last Samurai" depicts Saigo Takamori as a reactionary who rejected everything Western and died valiantly waving a samurai sword as he rode into the murderous fire of gatling guns. Well, he did die valiantly (or quixotically) as a medieval samurai charging on horseback into gunfire, but he wasn't a reactionary. He was a little bit more complicated than that.

Instead of being the movie's staunch defender of the status quo, Takamori was instrumental in dismantling Japanese feudalism and bringing Japan into the 19th Century. He embraced Western technology and admired some aspects of Western government. Fierce in battle, compassionate in victory, loyal to a fault, tortured by his perception of himself as a failure, eager to embrace death before dishonor, this was a man who commanded such respect that he endangered the Meijin government by simply refusing to participate in it.

How could one of the greatest supporters of the Meijin emperor rebel against his sovereign? How could one of the main architects of the moderinzation of Japan wind up charging on horseback into the murderous gunfire of the modern Japanese army? How could he in death be transformed into a hero of mythic proportions? Read the book and find out.

"Where is Saigo Takamori's head?"

Thus begins Mark Ravina's intriguing and amazingly detailed historical narrative of Japan's enduring hero of its traditional cultural ways, the way of the Samurai. As Ravina ponders, why did finding Takamori's head matter: because it represented one of the oldest traditions of the warrior class. At the final battle between the rebel forces against the Meiji state on the morning of September 24, 1877, in which the rebel forces were defeated, by presenting the severed head of this legendary defeated warrior, it displayed honour, and offering the head to the lord as tribute, this showed great respect for the Samurai class as a whole. (This was a contradiction, as the Meniji state had been suppressing the Samurai tradition for some time) It was highly symbolic that Takamori's head could not be found, which the author exams with great erudition and depth.

Saigo Takamori continues to be revered in Japan because he has come to represent the true Japan, medieval Japan, before the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji state, which ironically, Saigo Takamori played a major role that contributed to their rise and fall, respectively. Takamori was at once a great traditionalist and reformer. He practiced the old ways and believed passionately in the basic virtues of the Samurai, though at the same time realised the great need for his country to reform. In the end, he knew that Japan had to retain its cultural heritage, all that was good and positive, but he also realized the need to move with the west. He believed the west was advanced in many ways, politically, yet cultural anomalies such as ballroom dancing, he utterly appalled. In effect, he desired everything good from both cultures.

In fact this entire story is a paradox. It is because the desire for reform and the desire to retain the traditional are equal in importance and strength. Interestingly, after Saigo's death, a slogan appeared in the popular press at the time: "Shinsei kotoku" (A New Government, Rich and Value), in other words, a new governing body that retains traditional values. As the author points out -

"...it looks forward to a new government but harkens back to the notion that the state should be benevolent rather than bureaucratic. Implicit in the slogan was the contradictory but compelling desire for the vitality of a free society combined with the security of a Confucian patriarchy." (P.206)

The last Samurai, Sagio Takamori, is a mixture of legend and historical fact. Japan has created him as a symbol of modern Japan, that contradiction of modernity and deep-seated tradition that endures today. This is an excellent work on a fascinating individual.

Highly recommended.

Ken Watanabe's character, Katsumoto, the real soul of Tom Cruise's movie "The Last Samurai," is based on Saigo, and the movie's screenwriter has admitted that Saigo's story is what inspired the movie in the first place. This book shows why he was so inspired and why Katsumoto has such depth. Saigo was a complex, brilliant man, a hero in ways that the standard good v. evil model simply cannot account for. And his Japan was a marvelous place where history and the future were in dramatic and dangerous collision. If you love the movie--and, really, it is tough not to love it--you will also love this book.

As someone who has strong personal connections to Japan, I was drawn to this title as a means of understanding the real story behind the movie. I was rewarded with a readable, apparently accurate review of one of the great men of the Meiji Restoration period of Japan. Saigo was a man of the era, first arriving in Edo at the same time as Perry's Black Ships, and fulminating what could arguably be the final resistance to the cataclysmic changes of that era in Japan.

One's understanding of the book would be enhanced, however, with some better understanding of the political institutions of the period, and broader knowledge of the part that various people played in the same historical context. Especially difficult are references to now-archaic regions in feudal Japan, regions which were expressly deconstructed by the new Meiji Government to cause their loss of significance in political affairs. For example, Saigo was from Satsuma, which is Southern Kyushu. But Tosa is a major player in the book, and I am still unsure of where that domain was.

What impressed me was Mr. Ravina's insight into the ambivalence and moral contradictions of the social, political, technological, and economic changes forced on Japan after 250 years of isolation. Only once does the author allude to the parallels to the modern-day situation in the Middle East, but the comparison is apt. I think this is an excellent book to gain some understanding of why the Islamic world has trouble with the West, and in doing so, the book could help the West formulate more appropriate responses to the Middle East's problems.

I'm familiar with Japanese history, including the Meiji Restoration, so this book read like a breeze to me; no problem with the historical references. I had previously read "Saigo Takamori: The Man Behind the Myth" by Charles Yates. You'll find Ravina's book is much better written - a more exciting read. Ravina has a fresh take on Saigo. In Yates' book, I would say the defining Saigo event is his life-risking mission to Choshu, showing Saigo's ability to gain trust through altruistic moves. By contrast, in Ravina's book I would say the defining Saigo event is his partnering with Okubo to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868. Saigo was the perfect idealistic partner to the political pragmatist Okubo. Nine years later, this perfect partnership became the perfect storm, with the idealist Saigo going to war against the pragmatic Okubo.

Ravina starts off with an informative account of Saigo's upbringing and the environment from which he came. Ravina provides fascinating detail on Saigo's scholarism and the Chinese classics he studied. Later, there is an insightful and engaging description of Saigo's life in exile on the Amami and Erabu islands. Finally, Ravina devotes 13 pages to the Seinan War, much better than Yates' two pages. But war buffs like me will still be thirsting for more. Maybe some day, someone will write a more detailed English account of this key conflict - really the last domestic Japanese battle in a long history of internal warfare.

Then you should buy this book. The man whose life it details, Saigo Takamori, is torn between his samurai ethos and the values of the newly emerging japanese society. He helps to overthrow the old shogun and establish a new government, but then becomes disillusioned and leads a rebellion of disgruntled Samurai against the modern Japanese government he helped to create. Saigo is sort of a living embodiment of the japanese cultural struggle between traditonal values and the modern world. If you like the movie the Last Samurai, or like Kenshin on cartoon network, then you will like this book because it gives you the real deal about samurai in 19th century Japan. The main Samurai character, Katsumodo, and plot of the new Tom cruise movie, are entirely based on Saigo Takamori's life and the rebellion he led. The context of the book is historical, but hey, its non-fiction, thats the point. Definately a good read for anyone interested in Samurai or Japan.

For those of you who like your reviews short and to the point: this book is just plain wonderful. I used it as an assigned text in a class I taught about modern Japan and will use it again. It is an academic book in that it addresses serious issues, but it is also exceptionally well-written. Those two qualities are usually mutual exclusive of one another. Ravina starts with an arresting sentence: "Where was Saigo Takamori's head?" and the story stays engaging throughout.

Ravina's purpose is to tell the story about the real man behind the Tom Cruise movie of the same name. Readers will discover that there are significant differences between what the film depicted and what really happened. Ravina might tell his story well, but also has an important one. While the Ken Watanabe's Matsumoto was a traditionalist opposed to change, the real Saigo Takamori was one of the Japanese equavilent of George Washington. He helped bring down the Shogun and was a founding father of modern Japan. He was also a learned, thoughtful man who studied the Confucian classics.

One of Ravina's strengths is showing that the many enemies of the Tokugawa family had an easier time agreeing to bring to bring them down than on what should replace their central authority. Saigo had fought against the shogun because they were the hereditary enemies of Satsuma, his daimyo or feudal province and/or lord. He was not prepared to create a modern, central state that abolished Satsuma altogether. Less than happy about the events that were taking place, he quite the new government. A few years later led a revolt against his former comrades. In an important point, Ravina shows that Saigo did a poor job of articulating a message about why he was rebelling, so people with a lot of different agendas who were unhappy at what was happening to Japan for any number of reasons. He literally was a rebel without a cause and has remained an enduring, modern folk hero in modern Japan.

Like many who will approach this book, I sought out Ravina's "The Last Samurai" as a corrective to the 2003 Edward Zwick film of the same title. As has been said elsewhere, it's deemed less politically correct in Hollywood to make a movie about a Japanese Robert E. Lee -- an American whose career is somewhat analagous to that of Saigo Takamori -- than a Japanese Sitting Bull. Ravina's extensively researched account strips away the romance from Saigo's life and presents it in a well-written and unemotional account.

Unfortunately, people such as myself -- American history buffs with only a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese history and, especially, the political struggles during the transformation of 19th-century Japan from a feudal society to a modern nation with ambitions of world power -- are going to find "The Last Samurai" rough going. There is a good deal of information in the book about the people and events that shaped Saigo's career, but Ravina seems to assume that the reader will be well-acquainted with some of the basic aspects of Japanese history -- the establishment and development of the shogunate, the relationship between the shoguns and the imperial dynasty and court, the relationships among the various daimyos, or feudal domains -- and provides inadquate context for the uninformed reader. I would advise any potential reader not already thus informed to read at least one expansive, general account of 19th-century Japanese history before delving into the life of Saigo. Such foreknowledge will make Ravina's book a far more rewarding experience. The book contains some decent maps and illustrations, but the maps could have been more inclusive, to show all the feudal domains of mid-19th-century Japan. (A map listing in the contents page also would have been welcome). And as another reviewer suggests, a biographical "cast of characters" who figure prominently in the book would be useful. Maybe it's just me, but some of the Japanese names and titles were hard to keep separate in my mind.

In summary: This is not a "popular" biography and does not conform to stereotypical Western images of the samurai gleaned from a half-century of movies. It's an enlightening book for specialists or for others who have prepared themselves for a study of 19th-century Japan.

...to my need for Japanese knowledge! This book got into more detail for Saigo's time in Japan. It gave me a different view of Japan at that time. Although previous reading of basic Japanese history is not needed (The writting in the book is great!), I would recommend, "A History of Japan: Stone Age to Superpower".

Saigo Takamori was a noble man, and followed true to Japanese character and honor. This book shows you how his personality and future is molded. Almost in story formatt, and not just a history book.