Book recommendations?

[Contubernalis]

I have Sansom's History of Japan thru 1334 and 1334-1615. Of course I have the Art of War (and the Art of Peace!). I'm chiefly interested in learning more about the Samurai and the way they fought.
If anyone is interested in mysteries, there's a series by Laura Joh Rowland that seems pretty accurate. Good plots too.

[FwSeal]

A great book to look at would be Eiji Yoshikawa's 'Taiko', a historical novel about the rise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the mid to late-16th Century. Its pretty accurate insofar as the characters and major events are concerned, and provides a nice opportunity to view the history as the Japanese do.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

(I still haven't got Taikô!!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif )

Well, Yoshikawa's books are probably the best fictional stuff about Japanese history one can have. James Clavell's Shôgun may be worth looking into for the Western perspective, but it's a bit of a cliché really. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

On the non-fiction side, the best commonly available books on Japanese *military* history (as opposed to sweeping general history like Sansom's books) are by Dr. Stephen Turnbull, who also happens to be the history consultant for Shôgun: Total War the game. His Samurai - A Military History and Samurai Sourcebook are good starting points.

For more bibliography and excellent general information, check out FWSeal-Kô's site (http://www.techjapanese.com/~samurai/) - he's too modest to say it himself, but it's a really great site. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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"Don't let your confusion confuse the user."
- Isys Information Architechts (http://www.iarchitect.com)

[This message has been edited by Anssi Hakkinen (edited 02-18-2001).]

[FwSeal]

My thanks, Anssi. I guess the site is beginning to shape up - hopefully it will be where I want to see it some day http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.
Another book readily available in English thats worth a look is Tony Bryant's 'Sekigahara 1600' by Ospery. Bryant is a pretty decent guy, by the way. He posts every so often on the Archive's forum - and has one heck of a site devoted to Japanese armor. As soon as I can find where I stuck the address, I'll post it here.

[Contubernalis]

Thanks guys. I've seen some of these titles mentioned in passing but your recommendation makes me feel good about buying them rather than food. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
These should keep me busy for a while. I'll definitely check out FWSEAL's site.

[Zen Blade]

Wow,
been a while since my last post... looks like things are slowing down... : (

anyways,
Contubernalis,

My recommendation as far as books go is this:

If you can read/speak Japanese, try to find books in Japanese (online, or at a Japanese bookstore or something). The info will be more plentiful and better in authenticity (in general).

However, if you live in the US or Europe and don't read/speak Japanese, I would not recommend buying too many samurai books unless they appear to have lots of good info or are really cheap. Personally, I would recommend first going to a local (but big) library and see what they have and what's in those books.

If you like those books, then you can try to find them online or in a bookstore. However, I find that most of those books don't have much info that I am particularly interested in. Thus, I usually just read them whenever I stop by our local library (at UCSD). This is a cheap, yet still informing, way of reading and learning about samurai history and such.

And I also recommend Samurai Archives. A tremendously good site for Japanese history in English!! If anyone ever finds another such site, please feel free to post the link here!

However, if you ever do find a book that you like, please inform us all as I am sure there will be plenty of ppl to talk with about it.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

[Contubernalis]

I went by our local Borders Books--$100US later I walked out with Turnbull's Samurai Warfare, Samurai Sourcebk, and Taiko (cor, it's big). To be honest, I was surprised that they had all of these on the shelf.

Thanks for your help, everyone.

[Nobunaga-san]

Konichi Wa!
Another book written by Eiji Yoshikawa is
Musashi-The Samurai, it is about Miyamoto Musashi.
Another great book is James Clavell´s
Gai-Jin, it is about some traders in Japan 1865,i think.
There are a group of samurais who want to restore the power to the emperor, and hate foreigners.

Excuse me for my english.
Sayonara

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Fear my katana!
Banzai!