Bushido article

[Taiji Rebel]

This article from the BBC about the book Bushido by Inazo Nitobe is worth a read:

Bushido: The book that changed Japan’s image

Published in 1900, Bushido: The Soul of Japan shaped how the nation was perceived around the world, writes Michiyo Nakamoto.

www.bbc.com

 

[jks9199]

Why? What struck you about it?

 

[Taiji Rebel]

Why? What struck you about it?

It struck a chord as I'd read Bushido by Inazo Nitobe as a youngster.

Back then, long before the internet was a thing, books were our number one information source. Cross-referencing and corroborating information was not so straightforward in those days. Therefore it was much easier for an author to shape our thinking on a subject.

The BBC article offers a different viewpoint on the topic of Bushido and the Samurai - reading the article also prompted me to look into the subject a little further and discover the following books on the subject:

The Book of Bushido: The Complete Guide to Real Samurai Chivalry by Antony Cummings
Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan by Oleg Benesch

Learning more about the history of the samurai and bushido has encouraged me to reconsider the stories and origins of other martial arts.