This is an excellent telling of the history of the samurai. Unlike other titles from the Osprey series, this book doesn't concentrate on the military aspects of the samurai such as their arms, armour and tactics. Instead, the main purpose of the book is to give you a glimpse of samurai culture. So we have sections on little known aspects of the samurai, such as the japanese navy and pirates. Other topics covered is the importance of ancestry, their use of hara-kiri suicide, the impact of guns on the Japanese psyche and the purpose of castles.
This book also picks out key moments during the last years of the samurai class.
There is for example, a chapter on the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, while there's another on the White Tigers - a group of child revolutionaries who fought for the Shogun during the Meiji restoration. This period of samuari history tends to get ignored for the more exciting wars of the Sengoku Jidai, so it is a pleasure to read about these little known chapters of the Japanese past. My only wish was that they delved a bit deeper into these subjetcs.
Those who are familiar with Dr. Turnbull's books will know that he is an expert on the subject, whose writing style is easy to understand.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the samurai, or Japanese history or culture in general.
