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Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan
Oleg Benesch
ABSTRACT
This book examines the development of the ‘way of the samurai’ (bushidō), which is popularly viewed as a defining element of the Japanese national character and even the ‘soul of Japan’. Rather than a continuation of ancient traditions, however, bushidō developed from a search for identity during Japan’s modernization in the late nineteenth century. In the 1880s the former samurai class was widely viewed as a relic of a bygone age, and the first significant discussions of bushidō at the end of that decade were strongly influenced by contemporary European ideals of gentlemanship and chivalry. At the same time, Japanese thinkers increasingly looked to their own traditions for sources of national identity, and this process accelerated as national confidence grew with military victories over China and Russia. This book considers the people, events, and writings that drove the rapid growth of bushidō, which came to emphasize martial virtues and absolute loyalty to the emperor. In the early twentieth century, bushidō became a core subject in civilian and military education, and was a key ideological pillar supporting the imperial state until its collapse in 1945. The close identification of bushidō with Japanese militarism meant that it was rejected immediately after the Second World War, but different interpretations of bushidō were revived by Japanese and foreign commentators seeking to explain Japan’s past, present, and future. This book further explores the factors behind this resurgence of bushidō, which has proven resilient through 130 years of dramatic social, political, and cultural change.
Keywords: Japan, samurai, bushidō, nationalism, militarism, internationalism, invented tradition, chivalry, Meiji, war
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780198706625
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2014 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198706625.001.0001
AUTHORS
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Oleg Benesch, author
Anniversary Research Lecturer in History, University of York
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SUBJECT(S) IN OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINEHistory
Military History
Contents
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Front Matter
Introduction
1 Before Bushidō: Considering Samurai Thought and Identity
2 First Explanations of Bushidō in the Meiji Era
3 The Early Bushidō Boom, 1894–1905
4 The Late Bushidō Boom, 1905–1914
5 The End of the Bushidō Boom
6 The Shōwa Bushidō Resurgence
7 Bushidō in Post-War Japan
Conclusions and Considerations
End Matter
