The best books on Edo Japan

The samurai were an estate of warriors who imposed and maintained peace in Japan for more than two centuries during the Tokugawa period, 1603-1868. While they maintained a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, as a result of the peace the samurai themselves were transformed over time into an educated, cultured elite--one that remained fiercely proud of its military legacy and hyper-sensitive in defending their individual honor.

This book provides detailed information about the samurai, beginning with a timeline and narrative historical overview of the samurai, followed by 100+ alphabetically arranged entries on topics related to the samurai, such as ritual suicide, castles, weapons, housing, clothing, samurai women. The entries cite works for further reading and often include sidebars linking the samurai to popular culture, tourist sites, and other information.

The victory of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) was, in many respects, a transformative event in world history. It redrew the map of East Asia and established Japan as a major world power. Most strikingly, it dealt a blow to European claims to racial and cultural superiority. Contemporaries struggled with what to make of this ‘new’ Japan. Many admired its rapid modernisation, while its rise also prompted new fears, or hopes, of a broader revolt against European imperialism.

My book explores how the British Empire, formally Japan’s ally after 1902, wrestled with these issues. The book weaves together studies of diplomacy, strategy, and imperial relations to pose searching questions about how Japan's entry into the 'family of civilised nations' shaped, and was shaped by, ideologies of race.

The man who came to be known as Yasuke arrived in Japan in the 16th century, an indentured mercenary arriving upon one of the Portuguese ships carrying a new language, a new religion, and an introduction to the slave trade. Curiously tall, bald, massively built, and black-skinned, he was known as a steadfast bodyguard of immense strength and stature, and swiftly captured the interest, and thence the trust, of the most powerful family in all of Japan. Two years later, he vanished.

Yasuke is the story of a legend that still captures the imagination of people across the world. It brings to life a little-known side of Japan - a gripping narrative about an extraordinary figure in a fascinating time and place.

The Tokaido Road bridges my two interests: travel and Japan. I love reading travelogues and thinking about the role of travel in our individual and collective imagination. The Tokaido road connects Tokyo with Kyoto and it was a much-celebrated road in Japan’s Edo era (1600-1868). It become a densely urbanized megalopolis in the post-WWII period. In this book, I study the transition of the Tokaido road from the Edo and Meiji eras. I look at everything from maps, to guidebooks, to woodblock prints, to gardens, textiles, and photography.

The book also brings to life the broader “movement culture” of the Edo period with its post-stations and multitude of characters (samurai, merchants, courtesans, poets) who travelled along the road, as well as the transformations that the establishment of the railway brought to travel and to the landscape of Japan’s coastal region with the advent of modernity.

Set in South Africa during the 1860s, the story takes place against the backdrop of the flourishing ostrich feather industry of those years, when the demand for ostrich feathers made them literally worth their weight in gold. It follows the fortunes of James Quenton, a lowly English immigrant who becomes obsessed with the wealth created by systematic harvesting of the ostrich for its feathers. Wings of Gold charts the growth of a magnificent obsession from seed to maturity, and the industry – and the fate of James – through to the Anglo Boer War in the early 1900s. 

A darkly twisted mixture of Snow White and King Arthur filled with magic, romance, and danger. Regina Laelia was cursed at birth, bound to a dark element of magic that is destined to destroy her, and hunted by the very queen of the kingdom herself. It's only with the help of her friends that she survived a fiery attempt on her life, and sparks a journey that will span the entire land of Myrr as she searches for a way to take back her rightful throne. All while trying not to fall prey to the dark temptations of the magic swirling in her veins, and resisting the pull to one ruggedly handsome blind knight expelled from the Evil Queen's army.

Henro, or pilgrims, have been walking around the 88 Sacred Temples of Shikoku Pilgrimage for 1200 years. They follow in the footsteps of the great Buddhist saint Kōbō Daishi, who achieved enlightenment on Shikoku, as they try to do the same. It’s a long journey, 1400km in all, with its 88 little goals – make that 89 – for the pilgrim traditionally walks back to Temple 1 to complete a circle. A circle is like the search for enlightenment, never-ending. While these days, most henro travel by car or bus, there are still walking henro out there making the effort.

I was a walking henro in the sweltering summer of 1995, and Tales of a Summer Henro is the story of my pilgrimage. Every journey will be different, but I tried to adhere to the advice of Kōbō Daishi – “do not just walk in the footsteps of the men of old, seek what they sought”.

The samurai were an estate of warriors who imposed and maintained peace in Japan for more than two centuries during the Tokugawa period, 1603-1868. While they maintained a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, as a result of the peace the samurai themselves were transformed over time into an educated, cultured elite--one that remained fiercely proud of its military legacy and hyper-sensitive in defending their individual honor.

This book provides detailed information about the samurai, beginning with a timeline and narrative historical overview of the samurai, followed by 100+ alphabetically arranged entries on topics related to the samurai, such as ritual suicide, castles, weapons, housing, clothing, samurai women. The entries cite works for further reading and often include sidebars linking the samurai to popular culture, tourist sites, and other information.

At the age of fifty-one, Matsuo Taseko left her home in a farm village where she had spent most of her life to go to Kyoto. It was 1862, and Japan was in the throes of dealing with a new international order. Was she going to further her study of classical poetry with court nobles, or was she going to demonstrate her loyalty to the emperor and expel the Western “barbarians”? Although she played a minor role in the events that ended the age of the samurai, her deeds were nonetheless astonishing for a woman of her day.

She was honored as a patriot even before her death, but her story also speaks to the transformative potential of a woman’s old age.