Rating: 
Summary: A Conflicted hero that endures today
Review: "Where is Saigo Takamori's head?"
Thus begins Mark Ravina's intriguing and amazingly detailed historical narrative of Japan's enduring hero of its traditional cultural ways, the way of the Samurai. As Ravina ponders, why did finding Takamori's head matter: because it represented one of the oldest traditions of the warrior class. At the final battle between the rebel forces against the Meiji state on the morning of September 24, 1877, in which the rebel forces were defeated, by presenting the severed head of this legendary defeated warrior, it displayed honour, and offering the head to the lord as tribute, this showed great respect for the Samurai class as a whole. (This was a contradiction, as the Meniji state had been suppressing the Samurai tradition for some time) It was highly symbolic that Takamori's head could not be found, which the author exams with great erudition and depth.
Saigo Takamori continues to be revered in Japan because he has come to represent the true Japan, medieval Japan, before the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji state, which ironically, Saigo Takamori played a major role that contributed to their rise and fall, respectively. Takamori was at once a great traditionalist and reformer. He practiced the old ways and believed passionately in the basic virtues of the Samurai, though at the same time realised the great need for his country to reform. In the end, he knew that Japan had to retain its cultural heritage, all that was good and positive, but he also realized the need to move with the west. He believed the west was advanced in many ways, politically, yet cultural anomalies such as ballroom dancing, he utterly appalled. In effect, he desired everything good from both cultures.
In fact this entire story is a paradox. It is because the desire for reform and the desire to retain the traditional are equal in importance and strength. Interestingly, after Saigo's death, a slogan appeared in the popular press at the time: "Shinsei kotoku" (A New Government, Rich and Value), in other words, a new governing body that retains traditional values. As the author points out -
"...it looks forward to a new government but harkens back to the notion that the state should be benevolent rather than bureaucratic. Implicit in the slogan was the contradictory but compelling desire for the vitality of a free society combined with the security of a Confucian patriarchy." (P.206)
The last Samurai, Sagio Takamori, is a mixture of legend and historical fact. Japan has created him as a symbol of modern Japan, that contradiction of modernity and deep-seated tradition that endures today. This is an excellent work on a fascinating individual.
Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Last Samurai
Review: A very readable book that covers the period of history in which Japan moved from a fuedal society to a modern one. I know you will be shocked to find out that this book is not anything like the movie, but it needed to be said anyway. As can be expected of real life, it is much more complex and less clear cut than anything portrayed in the movie. It has always seemed interesting to me that Japan moved so quickly after Admiral Perry's visit. They went from a fuedal country to a world power and only stopped after being hit with an atomic bomb. This book takes a look at that transition.
Rating:
Summary: Last Samurai
Review: A very readable book that covers the period of history in which Japan moved from a fuedal society to a modern one. I know you will be shocked to find out that this book is not anything like the movie, but it needed to be said anyway. As can be expected of real life, it is much more complex and less clear cut than anything portrayed in the movie. It has always seemed interesting to me that Japan moved so quickly after Admiral Perry's visit. They went from a fuedal country to a world power and only stopped after being hit with an atomic bomb. This book takes a look at that transition.
Rating: 
Summary: If you're interested in Saigo, you'll love this book
Review: As someone who has strong personal connections to Japan, I was drawn to this title as a means of understanding the real story behind the movie. I was rewarded with a readable, apparently accurate review of one of the great men of the Meiji Restoration period of Japan. Saigo was a man of the era, first arriving in Edo at the same time as Perry's Black Ships, and fulminating what could arguably be the final resistance to the cataclysmic changes of that era in Japan. One's understanding of the book would be enhanced, however, with some better understanding of the political institutions of the period, and broader knowledge of the part that various people played in the same historical context. Especially difficult are references to now-archaic regions in feudal Japan, regions which were expressly deconstructed by the new Meiji Government to cause their loss of significance in political affairs. For example, Saigo was from Satsuma, which is Southern Kyushu. But Tosa is a major player in the book, and I am still unsure of where that domain was. What impressed me was Mr. Ravina's insight into the ambivalence and moral contradictions of the social, political, technological, and economic changes forced on Japan after 250 years of isolation. Only once does the author allude to the parallels to the modern-day situation in the Middle East, but the comparison is apt. I think this is an excellent book to gain some understanding of why the Islamic world has trouble with the West, and in doing so, the book could help the West formulate more appropriate responses to the Middle East's problems.
Rating:
Summary: Timely and insightful
Review: As someone who has strong personal connections to Japan, I was drawn to this title as a means of understanding the real story behind the movie. I was rewarded with a readable, apparently accurate review of one of the great men of the Meiji Restoration period of Japan. Saigo was a man of the era, first arriving in Edo at the same time as Perry's Black Ships, and fulminating what could arguably be the final resistance to the cataclysmic changes of that era in Japan. One's understanding of the book would be enhanced, however, with some better understanding of the political institutions of the period, and broader knowledge of the part that various people played in the same historical context. Especially difficult are references to now-archaic regions in feudal Japan, regions which were expressly deconstructed by the new Meiji Government to cause their loss of significance in political affairs. For example, Saigo was from Satsuma, which is Southern Kyushu. But Tosa is a major player in the book, and I am still unsure of where that domain was. What impressed me was Mr. Ravina's insight into the ambivalence and moral contradictions of the social, political, technological, and economic changes forced on Japan after 250 years of isolation. Only once does the author allude to the parallels to the modern-day situation in the Middle East, but the comparison is apt. I think this is an excellent book to gain some understanding of why the Islamic world has trouble with the West, and in doing so, the book could help the West formulate more appropriate responses to the Middle East's problems.
Rating:
Summary: If you're interested in Saigo, you'll love this book
Review: I'm familiar with Japanese history, including the Meiji Restoration, so this book read like a breeze to me; no problem with the historical references. I had previously read "Saigo Takamori: The Man Behind the Myth" by Charles Yates. You'll find Ravina's book is much better written - a more exciting read. Ravina has a fresh take on Saigo. In Yates' book, I would say the defining Saigo event is his life-risking mission to Choshu, showing Saigo's ability to gain trust through altruistic moves. By contrast, in Ravina's book I would say the defining Saigo event is his partnering with Okubo to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868. Saigo was the perfect idealistic partner to the political pragmatist Okubo. Nine years later, this perfect partnership became the perfect storm, with the idealist Saigo going to war against the pragmatic Okubo. Ravina starts off with an informative account of Saigo's upbringing and the environment from which he came. Ravina provides fascinating detail on Saigo's scholarism and the Chinese classics he studied. Later, there is an insightful and engaging description of Saigo's life in exile on the Amami and Erabu islands. Finally, Ravina devotes 13 pages to the Seinan War, much better than Yates' two pages. But war buffs like me will still be thirsting for more. Maybe some day, someone will write a more detailed English account of this key conflict - really the last domestic Japanese battle in a long history of internal warfare.
Rating:
Summary: if you've seen the movie, you must read this book
Review: Ken Watanabe's character, Katsumoto, the real soul of Tom Cruise's movie "The Last Samurai," is based on Saigo, and the movie's screenwriter has admitted that Saigo's story is what inspired the movie in the first place. This book shows why he was so inspired and why Katsumoto has such depth. Saigo was a complex, brilliant man, a hero in ways that the standard good v. evil model simply cannot account for. And his Japan was a marvelous place where history and the future were in dramatic and dangerous collision. If you love the movie--and, really, it is tough not to love it--you will also love this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Last Samurai : The Life and Battles of Saigō Takam
Review: Known as the "Robert E. Lee" of Japan, Saigo- (1828-77) first helped overthrow the feudal Tokugawa regime and establish Meiji Japan in1868, then in 1877 led a bloody, futile uprising against the new government. He feared the impersonal, commercial, and centralized nation would destroy samurai traditions of personal honor, regional loyalty, and social service. Ravina (director, East Asian Studies Program, Emory Univ.) is a careful scholar who nevertheless writes an action-filled story that resonates today. He shows us that Saigo- was no reactionary, though he harked back to the tradition of the socially responsible Confucian warrior who valued community, not class exploitation or individual advancement. Especially interesting is Ravina's presentation of Saigo- 's legacy in popular culture, where he became a folk hero, forcing the government to elevate him posthumously to a reconciling national martyrdom. Fascists and right-wing patriots from the 1930s to today have evoked samurai tradition, but their efforts are exposed as tawdry exploitation by this engrossing and thoughtful history. Highly recommended for all college and larger public libraries. [Interest in this period may be driven by the new Tom Cruise film of same name and period, though it is not based on this book
Rating:
Summary: The Last Samurai : The Life and Battles of Saigō Takam
Review: Known as the "Robert E. Lee" of Japan, Saigo- (1828-77) first helped overthrow the feudal Tokugawa regime and establish Meiji Japan in1868, then in 1877 led a bloody, futile uprising against the new government. He feared the impersonal, commercial, and centralized nation would destroy samurai traditions of personal honor, regional loyalty, and social service. Ravina (director, East Asian Studies Program, Emory Univ.) is a careful scholar who nevertheless writes an action-filled story that resonates today. He shows us that Saigo- was no reactionary, though he harked back to the tradition of the socially responsible Confucian warrior who valued community, not class exploitation or individual advancement. Especially interesting is Ravina's presentation of Saigo- 's legacy in popular culture, where he became a folk hero, forcing the government to elevate him posthumously to a reconciling national martyrdom. Fascists and right-wing patriots from the 1930s to today have evoked samurai tradition, but their efforts are exposed as tawdry exploitation by this engrossing and thoughtful history. Highly recommended for all college and larger public libraries. [Interest in this period may be driven by the new Tom Cruise film of same name and period, though it is not based on this book
Rating: 
Summary: Scholarly excellence, but lacking in context
Review: Like many who will approach this book, I sought out Ravina's "The Last Samurai" as a corrective to the 2003 Edward Zwick film of the same title. As has been said elsewhere, it's deemed less politically correct in Hollywood to make a movie about a Japanese Robert E. Lee -- an American whose career is somewhat analagous to that of Saigo Takamori -- than a Japanese Sitting Bull. Ravina's extensively researched account strips away the romance from Saigo's life and presents it in a well-written and unemotional account. Unfortunately, people such as myself -- American history buffs with only a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese history and, especially, the political struggles during the transformation of
of 19th-century Japan from a feudal society to a modern nation with ambitions of world power -- are going to find "The Last Samurai" rough going. There is a good deal of information in the book about the people and events that shaped Saigo's career, but Ravina seems to assume that the reader will be well-acquainted with some of the basic aspects of Japanese history -- the establishment and development of the shogunate, the relationship between the shoguns and the imperial dynasty and court, the relationships among the various daimyos, or feudal domains -- and provides inadquate context for the uninformed reader. I would advise any potential reader not already thus informed to read at least one expansive, general account of 19th-century Japanese history before delving into the life of Saigo. Such foreknowledge will make Ravina's book a far more rewarding experience. The book contains some decent maps and illustrations, but the maps could have been more inclusive, to show all the feudal domains of mid-19th-century Japan. (A map listing in the contents page also would have been welcome). And as another reviewer suggests, a biographical "cast of characters" who figure prominently in the book would be useful. Maybe it's just me, but some of the Japanese names and titles were hard to keep separate in my mind. In summary: This is not a "popular" biography and does not conform to stereotypical Western images of the samurai gleaned from a half-century of movies. It's an enlightening book for specialists or for others who have prepared themselves for a study of 19th-century Japan.
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