Bushido: The Soul of Japan

Overview

Bushido: The Soul of Japan is, along with Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659–1719), a study of the way of the samurai. A best-seller in its day, it was read by many influential figures, among them US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.

Nitobe originally wrote Bushido: The Soul of Japan in English (1899), in Monterey, California, though according to the book's preface it was written in Malvern, Pennsylvania. The book was first published in English in New York in 1899. It was subsequently translated into Japanese in 1908 by Sakurai Hikoichirō. Thereafter, Yanaihara Tadao's translation became the standard text in Japanese which was published by Iwanami Shoten.

He found in Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the sources of the seven virtues most admired by his people: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, and loyalty.

He also delved into the other traditions of Japan, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, the indigenous Shintoism, and the moral guidelines handed down over hundreds of years by Japan's samurai and sages.

Nitobe sought similarities and contrasts by citing the shapers of European and American thought and civilization going back to the Romans, the Greek, and Biblical times. He found a close resemblance between the samurai ethos of what he called Bushido and the spirit of medieval chivalry and the ethos of ancient Greece, as observed in books such as the Iliad of Homer.