Bushido: The Soul of Japan

Bushido. This one word contains a wealth of meaning. Honor and grace, strength and compassion, loyalty and vengeance. Bushido is the warrior code of the samurai, a standard of conduct and an unwritten guide for right behavior and attitude. It is the core principle of ethics in Japan, an ideal that extends into every aspect of life and character. In this work, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, Inazo Nitobe explores the concept of Bushido and translates it onto a form accessible to western understanding. Nitobe examines each aspect of the Bushido code, showing how it corresponds to courage, honesty, benevolence, and politeness, and how it leads one to an understanding of loyalty and self-control. This work is a study of the way of the samurai, an exploration of the ideal that drove the fiercest and most honorable warrior class in human history. Bushido: The Soul of Japan was written at the turn of the 20th Century, providing the west a new and unprecedented avenue for the understanding of east