Books like The last samurai by Mark Ravina

Mark Ravina, a professor of history and former East Asian Studies director at Emory University, examines the life of Saigo Takamori, a samurai from southwestern Japan who became a key leader in the Meiji restoration. The biography follows his rise from tax clerk to imperial loyalist, his two exiles, his command of forces that toppled the shogunate, and his subsequent disillusionment with the new government. Ravina explains Saigo’s desire for a modern conscript army while yearning for the traditional warrior code, his failed attempt to serve as envoy to Korea, and his final years as a teacher of samurai boys. The book details the rebellion that erupted in 1876 after the government stripped samurai of their swords, the resulting bloodiest war in Japan’s history, and Saigo’s posthumous pardon in 1889. Through careful scholarship, it illuminates the tensions between Japan’s feudal past and its rapid modernization. Keywords: Saigo Takamori, Meiji Restoration, samurai, Japanese feudal society, imperial loyalist, 19th-century Japan, modern conscript army, Korean envoy, Osaka, feudal Japan, civil war, posthumous pardon, Emory University, history of Asia, Japanese history

First publish date: November 24, 2003