Publisher:New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
Copyright Date:©2019
ISBN: 9780190932947
Characteristics: vii, 118 pages :,illustrations
The history and folklore surrounding the Samurai is fascinating to many people. This likely has to do a lot with the way they have been portrayed in movies and television, and likely to a certain point as well in graphic novels and such however, I am not too familiar with the latter.
Most of what has been shown on the screen either from Hollywood or other sources is typically quite a bit different than what happened in reality (even when allowing a wide range for artistic license). This book goes a long way toward clearing up the confusion by giving a brief history of Japan that details the rise and fall of the Samurai.
If I remember correctly my first exposure to any relatively detailed knowledge of the samurai was through the miniseries "Shogun" by James Clavell, Which I believe came out in the 1980s, and everybody was reading it. This mini-series examined the life of a fictional sailor who is shipwrecked on the shores of Japan, and what he had to go through to live with the people there. The novel by Clavell is the first of a trilogy, but I've only read the first as they are very long novels.
Getting back to "Samurai: A Concise History". This book is extremely well written and extensively researched. It is easy to read and should give any person who is interested in getting their facts straight the real story about how the Samurai lived and how their lives were really different from what has been portrayed in the various media. This book could easily have been many times longer, but this wouldn't have been a burden as the author's style of writing is excellent for understanding by people of all ages.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this facet of Japanese life and history. It would make a great addition to any historical collections.
