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Does anyone know of a good book about Sengoku Jidai?

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Dag Stålhandske said:
Thank you. I just discovered that it is not available in any local library, not available in any used book store in my country and pretty expensive. I am not planning to buy it right now.

Dag Stålhandske
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What country are you located in?
 
Tatsunoshi said:
It's worth every penny, though (of course, I just blew $200 on "The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga" so I've been know to be a bit loose with history books).

You might be able to find a copy in a Book-Off branch for around ￥２０００.
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I bit the bullet and picked it up.

Any single-volume narrative history you'd care to recommend? So far I just have 戦国の活力
 
I could be in Kyoto now... If so, I would go through some famous bookshops like Junkudo or Kinokuniya.
 
Tatsunoshi said:
As regards Bloch, his was an interesting work for its day and still useful for historiography purposes. Virtually all historians now agree that Japan was not a feudal society (at least as how the concept is understood in the West).
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I'm curious to know the arguments from these historians about how Japan wasn't a feudal society. Most retainers held lands as fiefs by the will of their superiors, in exchange of service, income, and maintaining troops, and were held by oath, duty, or honor to serve his Lord to the death.

Here in the West, it is the core definition of feodality, from which the whole feudalism system originates. Its centered around the gesture of the hommage, which binds the overlord to his vassal, by the solemn promise to serve and being tied in service to a lord. The only difference I see in Japan, is that retainers didn't have to make a solemn oath about it, as service was the core definition of being a samurai in the first place.
 
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Drakken said:
I'm curious to know the arguments from these historians about how Japan wasn't a feudal society. Most retainers held lands as fiefs by the will of their superiors, in exchange of service, income, and maintaining troops, and were held by oath, duty, or honor to serve his Lord to the death.

Here in the West, it is the core definition of feodality, from which the whole feudalism system originates. Its centered around the gesture of the hommage, which binds the overlord to his vassal, by the solemn promise to serve and being tied in service to a lord. The only difference I see in Japan, is that retainers didn't have to make a solemn oath about it, as service was the core definition of being a samurai in the first place.
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It largely has to do with the legalities of land ownership, the taxation structure, the Bakuhan system (this only in the Edo period), the differing methods of adjudication, and the unique relationship between the Imperial Court and the Bakufu in its different flavors (Minamoto, Kujo/Imperial Princes/Hojo, Ashikaga, Tokugawa). For example, Shugo and Jito (not to mention the Governors appointed by the Imperial Court) really didn't own any land, but only had the right to police and collect certain taxes in an area. There are surface similarities to European feudalism, but at the heart of things it's completely different. The Cambridge History Of Japan series gives a nice in-depth explanation in English.
 
In addition to this, I think the people believing the progressive view of the history (especially before WWII or ca. -1970) underlined the similarities of the social systems between Europe and Japan. For these people, Japan must have the feudalism in the European style, since if Japan has it, the state can modernize as the European and American countries did after the time of the feudalism.
But modern Historians are free from this view though they agree that comparing the western and eastern social systems is very important for the histriography.
 
Yep, that was a big contributing factor. Especially Western historians who first tackled the history of Japan in the 1800's-they wanted to put it in a familiar framework that would make it easier for their readers to understand (and, not coincidentally, themselves as well). Although it still happens-hence we get the ubiquitous Stephen Turnbull stating Knight=Samurai and Bushido (Bullshido)=Chivalry. But thankfully, not Ninja=Pirate. At least not yet.
 
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