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The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, by Mark Ravina
PDF Ebook The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, by Mark Ravina
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The dramatic arc of Saigo Takamori's life, from his humble origins as a lowly samurai, to national leadership, to his death as a rebel leader, has captivated generations of Japanese readers and now Americans as well - his life is the inspiration for a major Hollywood film, The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe. In this vibrant new biography, Mark Ravina, professor of history and Director of East Asian Studies at Emory University, explores the facts behind Hollywood storytelling and Japanese legends, and explains the passion and poignancy of Saigo's life. Known both for his scholarly research and his appearances on The History Channel, Ravina recreates the world in which Saigo lived and died, the last days of the samurai.
The Last Samurai traces Saigo's life from his early days as a tax clerk in far southwestern Japan, through his rise to national prominence as a fierce imperial loyalist. Saigo was twice exiled for his political activities -- sent to Japan's remote southwestern islands where he fully expected to die. But exile only increased his reputation for loyalty, and in 1864 he was brought back to the capital to help his lord fight for the restoration of the emperor. In 1868, Saigo commanded his lord's forces in the battles which toppled the shogunate and he became and leader in the emperor Meiji's new government. But Saigo found only anguish in national leadership. He understood the need for a modern conscript army but longed for the days of the traditional warrior.
Saigo hoped to die in service to the emperor. In 1873, he sought appointment as envoy to Korea, where he planned to demand that the Korean king show deference to the Japanese emperor, drawing his sword, if necessary, top defend imperial honor. Denied this chance to show his courage and loyalty, he retreated to his homeland and spent his last years as a schoolteacher, training samurai boys in frugality, honesty, and courage. In 1876, when the government stripped samurai of their swords, Saigo's followers rose in rebellion and Saigo became their reluctant leader. His insurrection became the bloodiest war Japan had seen in centuries, killing over 12,000 men on both sides and nearly bankrupting the new imperial government. The imperial government denounced Saigo as a rebel and a traitor, but their propaganda could not overcome his fame and in 1889, twelve years after his death, the government relented, pardoned Saigo of all crimes, and posthumously restored him to imperial court rank.
In THE LAST SAMURAI, Saigo is as compelling a character as Robert E. Lee was to Americans-a great and noble warrior who followed the dictates of honor and loyalty, even though it meant civil war in a country to which he'd devoted his life. Saigo's life is a fascinating look into Japanese feudal society and a history of a country as it struggled between its long traditions and the dictates of a modern future.
- Sales Rank: #311712 in Books
- Published on: 2005-02-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x .82" w x 6.10" l, .91 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
From Booklist
Within the complicated chronology of the Tokugawa shogunate's fall and succession by a modernizing monarchy, the so-called Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 is clearly the definitive last stand of Japanese feudalism. For that reason, the life of Saigo Takamori, who headed that rebellion, has acquired a romantic aura that doesn't strictly withstand Ravina's historical scrutiny; nevertheless, what survives the author's inspection contributes to an interesting portrait of a samurai in interesting times. Saigo rose from the bottom tiers of the warrior class, eventually leading the armies supporting the emperor against those of the shogun. His ascent was hardly smooth, though, entailing two exiles, a suicide pact that he survived, and three marriages. Ravina recounts the tumults that resulted in Saigo's acquiescence in revolt, capturing the protagonist's struggle with loyalty and showing American readers the quality of enigmatic nobility that makes Saigo a well-known historical figure in Japan. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“In a pacy narrative that reads like a thriller, Ravina follows Takamori through his last battle…” (Good Book Guide, April 2005)
Review
"Ravina has opened up a dimension of Saigo’s life that was closed to English readers before now."
—Charles L. Yates, The Historian
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent
By Timothy J. Logan
For students of Japanese History Saigo has always been an enigma.
This work makes sense of Saigo and his ultimate revolution without purpose.
A strong recommendation for those with a serious interest in Japanese History and the Meiji Period.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Enjoyable, educational read
By Doug Breese
I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the samurai lifestyle and code. The movie "The Last Samurai" sparked an interest and this book satisfied it. It had very little to do with the movie but that wasn't a problem for me. I learned how one became a samurai, how they trained and what they were expected to do in fuedal Japanese society. I also learned alot about the political intrigue of Japanese government that makes western politics look like a bunch of kids at recess. And if that wasn't enough, the book told a story of a person (Saigo Takamori) living in a world that was changing around him. His unrelenting efforts to keep what he loved about Japan in place were moving. Great book.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
A Conflicted hero that endures today
By C. Middleton
"Where is Saigo Takamori's head?"
Thus begins Mark Ravina's intriguing and amazingly detailed historical narrative of Japan's enduring hero of its traditional cultural ways, the way of the Samurai. As Ravina ponders, why did finding Takamori's head matter: because it represented one of the oldest traditions of the warrior class. At the final battle between the rebel forces against the Meiji state on the morning of September 24, 1877, in which the rebel forces were defeated, by presenting the severed head of this legendary defeated warrior, it displayed honour, and offering the head to the lord as tribute, this showed great respect for the Samurai class as a whole. (This was a contradiction, as the Meniji state had been suppressing the Samurai tradition for some time) It was highly symbolic that Takamori's head could not be found, which the author exams with great erudition and depth.
Saigo Takamori continues to be revered in Japan because he has come to represent the true Japan, medieval Japan, before the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji state, which ironically, Saigo Takamori played a major role that contributed to their rise and fall, respectively. Takamori was at once a great traditionalist and reformer. He practiced the old ways and believed passionately in the basic virtues of the Samurai, though at the same time realised the great need for his country to reform. In the end, he knew that Japan had to retain its cultural heritage, all that was good and positive, but he also realized the need to move with the west. He believed the west was advanced in many ways, politically, yet cultural anomalies such as ballroom dancing, he utterly appalled. In effect, he desired everything good from both cultures.
In fact this entire story is a paradox. It is because the desire for reform and the desire to retain the traditional are equal in importance and strength. Interestingly, after Saigo's death, a slogan appeared in the popular press at the time: "Shinsei kotoku" (A New Government, Rich and Value), in other words, a new governing body that retains traditional values. As the author points out -
"...it looks forward to a new government but harkens back to the notion that the state should be benevolent rather than bureaucratic. Implicit in the slogan was the contradictory but compelling desire for the vitality of a free society combined with the security of a Confucian patriarchy." (P.206)
The last Samurai, Sagio Takamori, is a mixture of legend and historical fact. Japan has created him as a symbol of modern Japan, that contradiction of modernity and deep-seated tradition that endures today. This is an excellent work on a fascinating individual.
Highly recommended.
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