The Samurai Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Japan's Elite Warrior Class

I am very pleased with this purchase. It is well-written, highly detailed, and quite enjoyable to read. This book has something for everyone, from the beginner who wants a good frame of reference to the scholar. Anyone interested in the Samurai and accompanying Japanese culture will enjoy this. I can recommend it highly.

This is really amazing if your looking to understand the Tokugawa period. Not much on other period other than really big events. I really recommend this book

An excellent resource for the curious reader as well as the scholar!

I have read through a good portion of The Samurai Encyclopedia and find it well-written and comprehensive. Anyone seeking answers regarding every aspect of Samurai life will find them in this book. The encyclopedia concentrates on the Tokugawa and Meiji time periods (1543 - 1912). Besides giving a greater understanding of the Samurai and Japanese culture during this time period, it also gives the reader much insight into the Japanese attitude and way of thinking leading to their military aggression during the first half of the 20th Century. Apart from the purely academic and well-researched nature of this comprehensive compilation, it's also a fun companion resource. As an enthusiast of Japanese film, especially the Samurai genre, I can research the film character's that are based on real individuals and get a very deep understanding of the real person, e.g. Miyamoto Musashi as portrayed by the famous actor Toshiro Mifune in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy film series. This is one of the best researched and written books in the field of study on Samurai culture, written by a researcher who obviously loves this field of study and has kindly spent a lot of effort in sharing it with the World.

Great for scholars, students, and general readers! Vaporis's Samurai Encyclopedia includes very readable explanations of so much related to samurai -- battles, people, places, clothing, customs, laws, and more. He describes what happened and why it matters. He includes insets explaining how these issues are portrayed (correctly or incorrectly) in current popular culture, including movies and video games. And each entry also includes suggestions for further reading in English! This is truly a great service to historians and people interested in samurai everywhere. I teach Japanese history at the college level and plan to use this, or at least highly recommend it, in my course on samurai next year. An outstanding work!

I highly recommend this book. If you only have one title in your collection on Samurai this would make an excellent choice. I do have to caution people that Tuttle lately has been changing book titles and this is one of them. The hardcover, published by ABC-CLIO, was called "Samurai: An Encyclopedia of Japan's Cultured Warriors" This is exactly the same book. If you by chance bought both one can make an excellent gift to anyone interested in history or Japan.

I was not very familiar with samurai before purchasing this book, but I have found it extremely interesting and accessible. The sections cover subjects ranging from martial arts to cultural achievements and material culture. With so many topics, people with a wide range of historical interests are sure to find something they can enjoy. There are also numerous color inserts that bring the text to life. Overall, I would highly recommend!

This comprehensive volume of samurai culture really brings home both the diversity and complexity of these warrior's lives. Even though I teach East Asian history and culture, I learned a great deal from this fantastic encylopedia. Two of my favorite aspects? Those gorgeous color plates and the primary source excerpts at the back! This work gets an easily reachable place on my shelf.