Sources & Credits

Totman, Conrad. A History of Japan. 2nd ed. Blackwell, 2005.

The principal single-volume scholarly history of Japan used throughout this library.

Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press, 2000.

Authoritative work on the late Edo and Meiji periods; end of the samurai era.

Hall, John Whitney. Japan from Prehistory to Modern Times. Delacorte Press, 1970.

Classic overview; particularly useful for the Kamakura through Edo periods.

Friday, Karl F. Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan. Stanford University Press, 1992.

Foundational academic work on the emergence of the warrior class in Heian Japan.

Turnbull, Stephen. Samurai: The World of the Warrior. Osprey Publishing, 2003.

Turnbull, Stephen. Battles of the Samurai. Arms and Armour Press, 1987.

Bryant, Anthony J. Sekigahara 1600. Osprey Publishing, 1995.

Bottomley, Ian & A. P. Hopson. Arms and Armour of the Samurai. Bison Books, 1988.

McCullough, Helen Craig, trans. The Tale of the Heike. Stanford University Press, 1988.

Primary chronicle of the Genpei War; Tomoe Gozen, Yoshitsune, Dan-no-ura.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Hagakure. Trans. William Scott Wilson. Kodansha, 2002.

1716 Edo-period text on bushido; primary source for samurai values in peace.

Natori, Masazumi. Shoninki (正忍記). 1681. Trans. Antony Cummins & Yoshie Minami. 2011.

17th-century manual on shinobi methods; treats covert operations as distinct specialisation.

Nitobe, Inazo. Bushido: The Soul of Japan. 1900. Repr. Tuttle Publishing, 2001.

Meiji-era codification of bushido for Western audiences; important for understanding the concept's history.

Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. Harvard University Press, 1982.

Lamers, Jeroen P. Japonius Tyrannus: The Japanese Warlord Oda Nobunaga Reconsidered. Hotei Publishing, 2000.

Turnbull, Stephen. Samurai Women 1184–1877. Osprey Publishing, 2010.

Adolphson, Mikael S. The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha. University of Hawaii Press, 2007.