Books by Eiko Ikegami
“She’s looking at the Tokugawa period from the 17th through the 19th centuries and asking, how does the warrior regime function? What does it mean to be a warrior? And how do we go from having warriors who were very violent in warfare during the Warring States period of the 16th century into the not-so-violent types of this later period? How do we tame them, essentially?” Read more...
Michael Wert, Historian
Interviews where books by Eiko Ikegami were recommended
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1
Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
by Sayaka Murata -
2
The Memory Police
by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder -
3
All She Was Worth
by Alfred Birnbaum (translator) & Miyuki Miyabe -
4
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami -
5
The City and Its Uncertain Walls: A Novel
by Haruki Murakami -
6
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
by Hayao Miyazaki
Books By Japanese Authors
Books By Japanese Authors
Japanese literature has always performed strongly on Five Books, so we’ve put together an overview of some of the books on our site by Japanese authors that have previously been recommended by our expert interviewees—from contemporary novels shortlisted for the International Booker Prize to classic works of literature, and everything in between.
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1
Performing the Great Peace: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan
by Luke Roberts -
2
The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan
by Eiko Ikegami -
3
Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan
by Constantine Vaporis -
4
Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai
by Teruko Craig (editor and translator) -
5
Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard, by an Edo Samurai
Mark Teeuwen and Kate Wildman Nakai (eds)
The best books on Samurai, recommended by Michael Wert
The best books on Samurai, recommended by Michael Wert
The samurai, Japan’s warrior caste, have been embraced by popular culture and made their way into films, comic books and video games. But who were they really? Michael Wert, professor of East Asian History at Marquette University and author of Samurai: A Concise History, recommends the best books to learn more about samurai, literally ‘one who serves.’
