Eiko Ikegami is the Walter A. Eberstadt Professor of Sociology and History at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Eiko Ikegami examines the nature and historical development of the samurai ethos, specifically concepts of honour, in the belief that the ideas which evolved among samurai in that context in pre-modern Japan do much to explain the paradox that a society almost universally regarded as conformist has undergone changes in the past 100 years that have been radical, even revolutionary, and owed much of their character to individual initiative. It is a very large subject… Professor Ikegami has produced a book of major importance for the understanding of Japan.

• I. A Sociological Approach Introduction 1. Honor, State Formation, and Social Theories II. Origins in Violence 2. The Coming of the Samurai: Violence and Culture in the Ancient World 3. Vassalage and Honor 4. The Rite of Honorable Death: Warfare and the Samurai Sensibility III. Disintegration and Reorganization 5. Social Reorganization in the Late Medieval Period 6. A Society Organized for War IV. The Paradoxical Nature of Tokugawa

Eiko Ikegami is the Walter A. Eberstadt Professor of Sociology and History at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Eiko Ikegami examines the nature and historical development of the samurai ethos, specifically concepts of honour, in the belief that the ideas which evolved among samurai in that context in pre-modern Japan do much to explain the paradox that a society almost universally regarded as conformist has undergone changes in the past 100 years that have been radical, even revolutionary, and owed much of their character to individual initiative. It is a very large subject… Professor Ikegami has produced a book of major importance for the understanding of Japan.

• I. A Sociological Approach Introduction 1. Honor, State Formation, and Social Theories II. Origins in Violence 2. The Coming of the Samurai: Violence and Culture in the Ancient World 3. Vassalage and Honor 4. The Rite of Honorable Death: Warfare and the Samurai Sensibility III. Disintegration and Reorganization 5. Social Reorganization in the Late Medieval Period 6. A Society Organized for War IV. The Paradoxical Nature of Tokugawa

Eiko Ikegami is the Walter A. Eberstadt Professor of Sociology and History at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Eiko Ikegami examines the nature and historical development of the samurai ethos, specifically concepts of honour, in the belief that the ideas which evolved among samurai in that context in pre-modern Japan do much to explain the paradox that a society almost universally regarded as conformist has undergone changes in the past 100 years that have been radical, even revolutionary, and owed much of their character to individual initiative. It is a very large subject… Professor Ikegami has produced a book of major importance for the understanding of Japan.

• I. A Sociological Approach Introduction 1. Honor, State Formation, and Social Theories II. Origins in Violence 2. The Coming of the Samurai: Violence and Culture in the Ancient World 3. Vassalage and Honor 4. The Rite of Honorable Death: Warfare and the Samurai Sensibility III. Disintegration and Reorganization 5. Social Reorganization in the Late Medieval Period 6. A Society Organized for War IV. The Paradoxical Nature of Tokugawa