Hagakure

The Book of the Samurai

Tsunetomo Yamamoto, William Scott Wilson

$45

Hardback

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English

Shambhala Publications Inc
15 July 2012

History; Asian history; Combat sports & self-defence

Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of texts written by an eighteenth-century samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo. It is a window into the samurai mind, illuminating the concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die. While Hagakure was for many years a secret text known only to the warrior vassals of the Nabeshima clan to which the author belonged, it later came to be recognized as a classic exposition of samurai thought. The original Hagakure consists of over 1,300 short texts that Tsunetomo dictated to a younger samurai over a seven-year period. William Scott Wilson has selected and translated here three hundred of the most representative of those texts to create an accessible distillation of this guide for samurai. No other translator has so thoroughly and eruditely rendered this text into English. For this edition, Wilson has added a new introduction that casts Hagakure in a different light than ever before. Tsunetomo refers to bushido as the Way of death, a description that has held a morbid fascination for readers over the years. But in Tsunetomo's time, bushido was a nuanced concept that related heavily to the Zen concept of muga, the death of the ego. Wilson's revised introduction gives the historical and philosophical background for that more metaphorical reading of Hagakure, and through this lens, the classic takes on a fresh and nuanced appeal.

By: Tsunetomo Yamamoto
Translated by: William Scott Wilson
Imprint: Shambhala Publications Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 295g
ISBN: 9781590309858
ISBN 10: 1590309855
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 15 July 2012
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active