This book contains 171 highly detailed alphabetical entries and essays on a broad variety of intriguing topics, including the following:
Samurai weapons and armor, including the fearsome katana sword
Famous Samurai including Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's greatest swordsman;
Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate;
and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a uni er of Japan and notorious persecutor of Christians in the 16th century
The Battle of Sekigahara, the largest battle ever to take place in Japan, and the Boshin War, which led to the fall of the shogunate and restoration of imperial power
Paul Martin, a world-renowned scholar of Japanese swords, takes us on a journey of discovery of samurai culture through an examination of valuable weapons and armor belonging to thirty of Japan's most celebrated warriors.
Get a close-up look at scores of magnificent blades, fittings and armor which belonged to thirty of the most famous warriors and leaders in Japanese history including:
A wooden sword commissioned and owned by Miyamoto Musashi — Japan's greatest swordsman; an exact replica of the sword he wielded at the legendary duel on Ganryu-jima Island
The tachi blade worn by Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the powerful unifier of Japan—which was later presented to the Meiji Emperor
The katchu (armor) belonging to Minamoto no Yoshitsune, hero of the Genpei Wars and later gifted as a votive offering to the Kasuga Shrine in Nara
The naginata (halberd) said to be the favored weapon of Tomoe Gozen, Japan's famous female Samurai, that was immortalized in the classic book Tale of the Heike
This piece of writing by famed samurai Musashi (1584-1645) is the single-most influential work on samurai swordsmanship, offering insights into samurai history, the Zen Buddhist state of "no-mind" that enables warriors to triumph and the philosophical meaning of Bushido—"the way of the warrior."
Bennett's translation is the first to be based on a careful reconstruction of the original text by Japan's foremost Musashi scholar.
