Kure Mitsuo. Samurai: An Illustrated History

Tuttle Publishing, 2001. — 436 p. — ISBN 978-1-4629-1490-6.This Japanese history book traces the story of a unique historical phenomenon: a period of 700 years—equivalent to the entire stretch of Western history between the reigns of the Crusader king Richard the Lionhearted and of Queen Victoria at the height of the British Empire—during which an enclosed civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste. The historical narrative of samurai history is supported by explanations of samurai armor, weapons, fortifications, tactics, and customs, and illustrated with nearly 800 fascinating color photographs, maps, and sketches, including ancient scroll paintings and surviving suits of armor preserved for centuries in Japanese shrines. From the 12th to the 19th centuries the history of Japan was mainly the history of the samurai—the class of professional fighting men. At first, they were no more than lowly soldiery employed by the court aristocracy of Kyoto, but the growing power of the provincial warrior clans soon enabled them to brush aside the executive power of the imperial court and to form a parallel military government. Though individual dynasties came and went in cycles of vigor and decadence, the dominance of the samurai as a class proved uniquely resilient.The Centuries of the Samurai
The Rise of the Warrior Class
The Prosperity of the Heishi
The Struggle between the Genji and Heishi
The Hojo Regency
The Mongol Invasions
The Fall of the Kamakura Bakufu and the Revival of Imperial Government
The Muromachi Bakufu
The Onin War and the Beginnings of Gekokujo
The Age of Battles—Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi
The Reign of Hideyoshi
Sekigahara—A Decisive Battle?
The Osaka Campaign
The Christian Rebellion in Shimabara
The Tokugawa Bakufu
Dragon Horse, A Pioneer of Modern Japan
The Age of the Country at War—Representative Campaigns and Families
The Battle of Okehazama, 1560
The Bears of Kyushu from the 8th to the 16th Centuries AD
The Arrows of Chugoku, 1498–1571
Uesugi Kenshin & Takeda Shingen mid–16th Century AD
Chaos in Kanto 15th & 16th Centuries AD