Samurai vs Knight!
A Comparison, Not a Fight...
Hello and Happy Friday!
I’ve published this week’s post over at
History, Etc substack. It's inspired by a book written back in 1899 by a man named Nitobe Inazō.This was a period in which Japan was taking in an astonishing range of Western ideas, from science and technology through to democracy, Christianity, food and fashion.
Nitobe was all for Japan modernizing along these lines and raising itself up to become Asia's paramount power. At the same time, like many others of his era, he was worried that Westerners regarded the Japanese as a little bit backward and uncouth.
His solution was Bushidō: The Soul of Japan, a book which drew out what he saw as the parallels between European chivalry and Japan's centuries-old samurai culture - thereby putting the two cultures on an equal footing.
Historians have tended to be a bit sniffy about Bushidō, accusing Nitobe of distorting his subject matter so as to make samurai and knights appear more similar to each other than they really were. Still, it went on to be influential on everybody from H.G. Wells to John F. Kennedy. So I suppose Nitobe could regard it as a job rather well done.
My own more modest effort, in my post for
, offers an introduction to the rise and fall of the samurai with a few thoughts on where European knights really do appear to be their close cousins.Enjoy!
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