Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori and over 300,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle � Amazon�s new wireless reading device. Learn more

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

73 used & new from $0.49

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Start reading The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori on your Kindle in under a minute. Don�t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori (Hardcover)

by Mark Ravina (Author) "Saigo was born in Kagoshima, a castle town and the capital of Satsuma domain..." (more)
Key Phrases: keiten aijin, daimyo council, shiritsu hakubutsukan, Zhu Xi, Hitotsubashi Keiki, Matsudaira Shungaku (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

List Price:	$32.50
Price:	$26.00 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:	$6.50 (20%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Upgrade this book for $3.39 more, and you can read, search, and annotate every page online. See details

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 2 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Monday, July 20? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

36 new from $9.94 36 used from $0.49 1 collectible from $32.50

Also Available in:	List Price:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Kindle Edition (Kindle Book)		$11.44
Paperback (1)	$16.95	$11.53	83 used & new from $2.50

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $65.72

Show availability and shipping details

This item: The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori by Mark Ravina
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu by Ryotaro Shiba
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration by Professor Marius B. Jansen
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai

by Katsu Kokichi

4.4 out of 5 stars (14) $17.05

Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration

by Professor Marius B. Jansen

5.0 out of 5 stars (5) $28.80

Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps

by Romulus Hillsborough

3.9 out of 5 stars (7) $22.76

The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan

by Eiko Ikegami

4.2 out of 5 stars (4) $23.85

Legends of the Samurai

by Hiroaki Sato

4.8 out of 5 stars (6) $29.20

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Within the complicated chronology of the Tokugawa shogunate's fall and succession by a modernizing monarchy, the so-called Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 is clearly the definitive last stand of Japanese feudalism. For that reason, the life of Saigo Takamori, who headed that rebellion, has acquired a romantic aura that doesn't strictly withstand Ravina's historical scrutiny; nevertheless, what survives the author's inspection contributes to an interesting portrait of a samurai in interesting times. Saigo rose from the bottom tiers of the warrior class, eventually leading the armies supporting the emperor against those of the shogun. His ascent was hardly smooth, though, entailing two exiles, a suicide pact that he survived, and three marriages. Ravina recounts the tumults that resulted in Saigo's acquiescence in revolt, capturing the protagonist's struggle with loyalty and showing American readers the quality of enigmatic nobility that makes Saigo a well-known historical figure in Japan. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"...Ravina's writing grips with the intensity of a great adventure story and vividly portrays the upheavals caused to a nation..." -- Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 January 2004

"...Reads like a thriller..." -- Good Book Guide, February 2004

"...a pacy narrative that reads like a thriller, complemented by maps and photographs..." -- The Good Book Guide, January 2004

“Ravina’s portrait of Saigo is well drawn and sympathetic…” (Asian Affairs, November 2004)

"...Reads like a thriller..." (Good Book Guide, February 2004)

"...Ravina's writing grips with the intensity of a great adventure story and vividly portrays the upheavals caused to a nation..." (Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 January 2004)

"...a pacy narrative that reads like a thriller, complemented by maps and photographs..." (The Good Book Guide, January 2004)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Wiley (November 24, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0471089702
ISBN-13: 978-0471089704
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #688,215 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Saigo was born in Kagoshima, a castle town and the capital of Satsuma domain. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
keiten aijin, daimyo council, shiritsu hakubutsukan, imperial loyalism, shogunal forces, domain elders, shi hensan iinkai, haihan chiken, samurai estate, major daimyo, tozama lords, daimyo class, loyalist radicals, imperial loyalists, samurai privilege, samurai stipends, imperial councilor, shogunal officials, domain academy, many daimyo, other daimyo, most samurai, deadly ground, domain elite, caretaker government

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Zhu Xi, Hitotsubashi Keiki, Matsudaira Shungaku, Shimazu Hisamitsu, Edo Castle, Kagoshima City, United States, Tokugawa Nariaki, Katsura Hisatake, Shimazu Nariakira, Shimazu Tadayoshi, Date Munenari, Kagoshima Bay, Kumamoto Castle, Matsudaira Katamori, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu, Abe Masahiro, Amami Oshima, East Asian, Edo Bay, Iwakura Tomomi, Murata Shinpachi, Yamagata Aritomo, Hashimoto Sanai, Ijichi Sadaka

New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 46 books:

Personality in Japanese history by Albert M. Craig on 4 pages
The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 1: Ancient Japan (Volume 1) by Delmer M. Brown in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wing-Tsit Chan in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji by Marius B. Jansen in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Modern Japan by Peter Duus in Back Matter

See all 46 books this book cites

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen

Discusses:

The Emergence of Meiji Japan by Marius B. Jansen

Discusses:

A Modern History of Japan by Andrew Gordon

Discusses:

Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration by Professor Marius B. Jansen

Discusses:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	82% buy the item featured on this page: The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori 4.3 out of 5 stars (22) $26.00
	6% buy Shogun 4.7 out of 5 stars (310) $8.99
	4% buy The Last Samurai [Blu-ray] 4.1 out of 5 stars (704) $14.99
	4% buy Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps 3.9 out of 5 stars (7) $22.76

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

japan(4)

japanese history(3)

biographies(1)

history(1)

Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search

No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

22 Reviews

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Story of the Last Samurai, December 21, 2003

By	Nick Jamilla (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Paradoxical Life of a Paragon of Virtue, June 28, 2004

By	George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Conflicted hero that endures today, October 20, 2004

By	C. Middleton (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

"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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 22 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Westerners Should Try to Forget the Movie
If you saw the film "The Last Samurai" and have not studied much Japanese history, you have a long way to go before you can appreciate this book or the larger than life story of... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Ronin

4.0 out of 5 stars Great service!
Book was in good condition. Really fast delivery. It came in like a day. Thanks!

Published 16 months ago by S. Cline

5.0 out of 5 stars The Life Behind the Legend
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... Read more

Published on June 4, 2007 by Nicholas E. Sarantakes

5.0 out of 5 stars Virtue to the End
Saigo Takamori is rightly remembered, despite being a traitor in some people's views. His life was one of ebbs and flows, being at the centre of power in Japan and also at the... Read more

Published on January 6, 2007 by Bu-chan

5.0 out of 5 stars For me an interesting read
After seeing "The Last Samurai;" I was curious to read a little about what really happened with Saigo Takamori. Read more

Published on December 23, 2006 by Mathew A. Shember

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Insight into the True life of a Samurai
While a true fan of the Samurai movies may enjoy reading about the life and times of the last Samurai, those looking for a "real life" account of the Characters found in the "last... Read more

Published on November 24, 2006 by Sensei Butch Mclaughlin

4.0 out of 5 stars Agenst all odds

The plot involved a man who is a sword fighter. His name is Saigo Takamori which is a Japanese name. Read more

Published on March 7, 2006

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, educational read
I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the samurai lifestyle and code. The movie "The Last Samurai" sparked an interest and this book satisfied it. Read more

Published on August 6, 2005 by D. Breese

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read about a fascinating historical figure
I picked this title up without knowing a great deal about Saigo Takamori or the Bakumatsu period of Japanese history. Read more

Published on July 4, 2005 by A. Haynes

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice continuation...
...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. Read more

Published on April 12, 2005 by Clinton G. Reiswig

› See all 22 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; }

Customer Discussions

Beta (What's this?)

New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.

This product's forum (0 discussions)

	Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
	No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

[Cancel]

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
history What was the Worst Military Defeat in History?	166	3 minutes ago
history Why does Holocaust Denial Exist?	5364	4 minutes ago
history Roman vs. Greek "Empires"	13	7 minutes ago
history What was the Romans greatest contribution to posterity?	102	14 minutes ago
history History of the Palestinian Nation?	803	17 minutes ago
biography WHAT T IS THE BEST BIOGRAPY YOU EVER READ?	210	10 hours ago
biography What I thought about the books by Aaron Bowers	0	1 day ago