Customer Reviews

Samurai: The Story of a Warrior Tradition

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This book is one of those books that when you start to read it you can't put it down. As well as the main text there are interseting asides that take you behind the scenes of the the lifes and times of a warrior race that was both bloody and brutal as well as being artistic and restrained. Mr. Cook has written a wonderful narative that take the reader inside the Samurai's world.

Well, I have to tell you that I came to this book after I saw the movie The Last Samurai. While Hollywood movies can serve a positive function by exposing people to new ideas and cultures, they very rarely tell the truth about them. So I came to this book looking for a general introduction to the Samurai. This book did a good job of that by the use of reader-friendly prose and an abundance of illustrations.

The feudal system that came about in Japan was very similar to that of Western Europe, with a weak central government who owed its power to local warlords, who in turn had their own private armies. In Japan, the samurai, like the knights in Europe went from being simple warriors to the offical exemplars of the entire culture. They had their own code of chivalry, "Bushido", and would often kill themselves rather than suffer the dishonor of defeat. For a thousand years, they were the true power behind the throne of the emperor. Ironically, the demise of the samurai came about because of peace. What were these warriors supposed to do without a war? As seen in The Last Samurai, towards the end, they were even forbidden to wear their swords. In some respects, they were similar to the American Indians, in that a lot of them failed to assimilate to a culture that was rapidly being revolutionized by technology.

This book tells of all the major battles the samurai undertook, whether it was the native inhabitants of Japan, Mongol and Chinese invaders, or even civil wars between themselves. Individuals are given some treatment, such as Musashi, probably the greatest warrior of all time, and the samurai who united Japan into a unified country for the first time. What is sad is that the samurai turned away from the modern world in unreasonable hopes that it would just go away. The problem is that the world stops for noone. Just because the samurai didn't want to use gunpowder or fight naval battles, America and other world powers were able to come in and humiliate Japan in the 19th century. It just goes to show you that isolationism breeds stagnation.

I would highly recommend this book to general readers or those who would like a general introduction to Japanese and Samurai history. I would also recommend The Samurai Trilogy available in Criterion Collection DVDS, and also any samurai film by Akira Kurosawa. Also, I would recommend The Tales of the Otori novels by Lian Hearn.