The Real Rules for Samurai

This lecture offers a critical look at the idea of “bushido”—the so-called way of the Japanese warrior—as it has come to be known in the West. Although it was very much a real and influential concept, it had almost nothing to do with the actual samurai warriors of Japan’s militant past. “Bushido” was actually an idea created in the modern period by Nitobe Inazō, born to promote an idealized view of Japan’s history to the West and to its own people. In lieu of “bushido,” it offers a survey of some of the “real” rules for the Japanese warrior classes at the height of their age of war: the house codes of the Sengoku era. Sources quoted and consulted in preparing this lecture, and suggested further reading: Brown, Roger H. “Yasuoka Masahiro’s ‘New Discourse on Bushidō Philosophy’: Cultivating Samurai Spirit and Men of Character for Imperial Japan.” Social Science Japan Journal 16:1 (2013): 107-129. Conlan, Thomas Donald. “The Nature of Warfare in Fourteenth-Century Japan: The Record of Nomoto Tomoyuki.” Journal