Christopher Ross
Martial Artistry
Kendo: Culture of the Sword
By Alexander C Bennett
University of California Press 286pp £22.95
I was going to start this review with a joke about the ‘Last Samurai’ Saigō Takamori’s testicles, which were huge, but as it would take more than four hundred words to tell, I shall refrain. Instead, to have any chance of describing Alexander Bennett’s close investigation into the culture of the Japanese sword and those who wielded it, embedded in a lucid, scholarly ramble through centuries of Japanese history, we must use those words to contextualise. Samurai were hereditary clans specialising in the arts of war. In the late Heian Period (794–1185), the emperor and his kuge (nobles) were challenged by powerful samurai alliances and eventually ceded power to Minamoto Yoritomo, who established a samurai government in Kamakura in 1192. The emperor formally appointed Yoritomo as sei-i taishōgun, or generalissimo. This domination by the samurai of central governance (with the emperor in Kyoto retained as de jure ruler), with the concomitant political struggle between samurai houses, was to last until the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Samurai are, of course, famed for their prowess with the katana (long sword). However, as Bennett explains, referring nerdishly but nicely to contemporary records examining wound patterns of battlefield injuries, most battlefield deaths were caused not by sword cuts but by arrow wounds. During what was nearly a century and
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk