What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns

What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns PDF Author:
Publisher: Time Life Medical
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
A comprehensive view of how the Samurai and Shoguns lived in Japan, their discipline and battle gear as well as other facts about typical behavior.

What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns

What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns PDF Author:
Publisher: Time Life Medical
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
A comprehensive view of how the Samurai and Shoguns lived in Japan, their discipline and battle gear as well as other facts about typical behavior.

Stranger in the Shogun's City

Stranger in the Shogun's City PDF Author: Amy Stanley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501188542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).

Among Samurai and Shoguns

Among Samurai and Shoguns PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781844471492
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
What Life Was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns tells the story of a grand empress's unstoppable ambition to determine who would rule her nation, along with many other compelling tales of the men and women of medieval Japan. it focuses on the daily lives of emperors and artisans, samurai and poets, and courtesans and monks in the capitals of Kyoto and Edo, in the countryside, in various castle towns and military fortifications, as well as in action on the battlefield. People like Murasaki Shikibu who wrote of the romantic lives of the Kyoto courtiers in her Tale of Genji; the great warrior Kusunoki Masashige, who committed seppuku rather than face capture by enemy troops; and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who succeeded, when so many others had failed, in unifying Japan. Distinctive and colourful scroll paintings bring Japan's people, places and events vividly to life. Fabulous artifacts, such as gold- and silver-dusted lacquerware boxes; kimonos of rich, embroidered silk; enigmatic No masks; and fearsome samurai body armour complete the setting of the scene.

Samurai, Shoguns, and Soldiers

Samurai, Shoguns, and Soldiers PDF Author: Barbara A. Somervill
Publisher: Lucent Press
ISBN: 9781420500301
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Explains the roots of Japanese militarism leading to World War II.

The Samurai

The Samurai PDF Author: Ben Hubbard
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750957255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
The true nature of the samurai warrior is an elusive and endlessly fascinating enigma for those in the west. From their inauspicious beginnings as barbarian-subduing soldiers, the samurai lived according to a code known as bushido, or ‘Way of the Warrior’. Bushido advocated loyalty, honour, pride and fearlessness in combat. Those who broke the code were expected to perform seppuku, or suicide through belly-slitting. By its very design, seppuku aimed to restore honour to disgraced warriors by ensuring the most painful of deaths. But as the samurai grew into large warrior clans, the bushido virtues of loyalty and honour fell into question, as control was seized and the emperor supplanted by a powerful military ruler, the shogun. Samurai tells the story of the ensuing centuries-long struggle for power between the clans, as Japan’s martial elite rose and fell.

The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps

The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps PDF Author: Romulus Hillsborough
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462922082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
"Power to them meant everything. It was founded on courage, which begot honor. And by this courage and for this honor they fought to the death." The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps tells the thrilling story of the Shinsengumi--the legendary corps of Samurai warriors tasked with keeping order in Kyoto during the final chaotic years of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868). This book recounts the fascinating tales of political intrigue, murder and mayhem surrounding the fearsome Shinsengumi, including: The infamous slaughter at Ikidaya Inn where, after learning of a plan to torch the city, a group of Shinsengumi viciously attacked and killed a group of anti-Tokugawa plotters The bloody assassination of Serizawa Kamo, the Shinsengumi leader, under highly suspicious circumstances The final tumultuous battles of the civil war in which the Shinsengumi fought and died in a series of doomed last stands Author and Samurai history expert Romulus Hillsborough uses letters, memoirs, interviews and eyewitness accounts to paint a vivid picture of the Shinsengumi, their origins, violent methods and the colorful characters that led the group.

Samurai Revolution

Samurai Revolution PDF Author: Romulus Hillsborough
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462913512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
See the dawn of modern Japan through the lens of the power players who helped shape it — as well as those who fought against it — in this exploration of Samurai history. Samurai Revolution tells the fascinating story of Japan's historic transformation at the end of the nineteenth century from a country of shoguns, feudal lords and samurai to a modern industrialized nation. The book covers the turbulent Meiji Period from 1868 to 1912, widely considered "the dawn of modern Japan," a time of Samurai history in which those who choose to cling to their traditional bushido way of life engaged in frequent and often deadly clashes with champions of modernization. Knowledge of this period is essential to understand how and why Japan evolved into the nation it is today. The book opens with the fifteen-year fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had ruled Japan for over 250 years, and the restoration of the Meiji emperor to a position of power at the expense of the feudal Daimyo lords. It chronicles the bloody first decade of the newly reestablished monarchy, in which the new government worked desperately to consolidate its power and introduce the innovations that would put Japan on equal footing with the Western powers threatening to dominate it. Finally, Samurai Revolution goes on to tell the story of the Satsuma Rebellion, a failed coup attempt that is widely viewed as the final demise of the samurai class in Japan. This book is the first comprehensive history and analysis in English that includes all the key figures from this dramatic time in Japanese politics and society, and is the result of over twenty-five years of research focused on this critical period in Japanese history. The book contains numerous original translations of crucial documents and correspondence of the time, as well as photographs and maps. Samurai Revolution goes in-depth to reveal how one era of ended and another began.

Samurai Sketches

Samurai Sketches PDF Author: Romulus Hillsborough
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780966740189
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The End of the Shoguns and the Birth of Modern Japan, 2nd Edition

The End of the Shoguns and the Birth of Modern Japan, 2nd Edition PDF Author: Mark E. Cunningham
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 146770377X
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
How did the end of the shoguns pave the way for modern Japan? Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, emperors ruled Japan. But powerful families gained the loyalty of the samurai - the emperors’ warriors. In 1185 one local lord took control as shogun, leader of the samurai armies. For the next seven hundred years, the emperors were ceremonial figures, and the shoguns ruled Japan, banning interaction with the Western world. In the nineteenth century, Westerners demanded that Japan open to trade under the threat of invasion. Japan’s shogunate realized it didn’t have the military technology to fight them. When the shogun government made concessions to the Westerners, Japanese lords were outraged and returned their support to the emperor. The shogunate crumbled. In 1868 Emperor Meiji became ruler of Japan. He opened Japan to modern technology, and his military advisers created a global fighting force. The end of the shoguns, which led to the birth of modern Japan, was one of the world’s pivotal moments.

African Samurai

African Samurai PDF Author: Thomas Lockley
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488098751
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
This biography of the first foreign-born samurai and his journey from Africa to Japan is “a readable, compassionate account of an extraordinary life” (The Washington Post). When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society. In the four hundred years since, Yasuke has been known in Japan largely as a legendary, perhaps mythical figure. Now African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the sixteenth century, one whose travels between countries and cultures offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan. “Fast-paced, action-packed writing. . . . A new and important biography and an incredibly moving study of medieval Japan and solid perspective on its unification. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Eminently readable. . . . a worthwhile and entertaining work.” —Publishers Weekly “A unique story of a unique man, and yet someone with whom we can all identify.” —Jack Weatherford, New York Times–bestselling author of Genghis Khan