CompleteMartialArts.com - The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan

Modern Japan offers us a view of a highly developed society with its own internal logic. Eiko Ikegami makes this logic accessible to us through a sweeping investigation into the roots of Japanese organizational structures. She accomplishes this by focusing on the diverse roles that the samurai have played in Japanese history. From their rise in ancient Japan, through their dominance as warrior lords in the medieval period, and their subsequent transformation to quasi-bureaucrats at the beginning of the Tokugawa era, the samurai held center stage in Japan until their abolishment after the opening up of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century.

This book demonstrates how Japan's so-called harmonious collective culture is paradoxically connected with a history of conflict. Ikegami contends that contemporary Japanese culture is based upon two remarkably complementary ingredients, honorable competition and honorable collaboration. The historical roots of this situation can be found in the process of state formation, along very different lines from that seen in Europe at around the same time. The solution that emerged out of the turbulent beginnings of the Tokugawa state was a transformation of the samurai into a hereditary class of vassal-bureaucrats, a solution that would have many unexpected ramifications for subsequent centuries.

Ikegami's approach, while sociological, draws on anthropological and historical methods to provide an answer to the question of how the Japanese managed to achieve modernity without traveling the route taken by Western countries. The result is a work of enormous depth and sensitivity that will facilitate a better understanding of, and appreciation for, Japanese society.

Along the way she presents important and insightful analyses of such familiar aspects of samurai life as ritual suicide, bushido, the _Hagakure_, and the story of the revenge of the 47 ronin.

The book begins with a section in which Ikegami sets out her analytical structure and theses. This may seem dry to some, but it is important in introducing concepts that run through the subsequent narrative. The bulk of the book consists of a chronologically arranged history of the development of samurai society, based in a wide range of Japanese and western sources.

The book is well written and has many touches to aid the reader (such as reminders of the meanings of key Japanese terms and avoidance of unexplained jargon). Nevertheless, the density of the argument and facts demand careful and thoughtful reading.

As the title should suggest, this is not a book for the novice, unfamiliar with the broad outlines of Japanese history. Nor is it a military history of the samurai.

Will O'Neil

In short, before tackling this book pick up a couple of textbook-style history books concerning "feudal" Japan and foster a solid understanding and following of it before reading this book.