Saigo Takamori: The Man Behind the Myth

Rating:
Summary: Not what you're looking for.
Review: As the first biography in English of Saigo Takamori and the first work to use original source material to examine his near-mythic status in Japanese history, this book does have value. However, it is not for the general reader. Though prodigious research was obviously behind this work, little accommodation is made to narrative thrust. The book appears to have been expanded from the author's masters thesis with passages which vary, often jarringly, in tone from the academic material. For those seeking a complete and more readable but still reputable history of the real man behind the character in "The Last Samurai" a better choice by far is the book by that name written by Mark Ravina.


Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: I had the great privelege and pleasure to have Charles Yates as my professor as an undergraduate. His keen insights and methodical decontruction, or "unpacking" of issues were seminal in my thinking about not only Japan, but the wider world. This book displays the same kind of attention to detail and thoroughgoing scholarship, combined with finely-honed skepticism, in dealing with one of the less understood figures in Meiji Japan. Through his ability to see through to the "why" in conventional scholarship, Chuck was able to write a convincing and human account of Saigo Takamori which successfully challenges the established ideas about the oligarch.

Rating:
Summary: Saigo is in the details
Review: I had the great privelege and pleasure to have Charles Yates as my professor as an undergraduate. His keen insights and methodical decontruction, or "unpacking" of issues were seminal in my thinking about not only Japan, but the wider world. This book displays the same kind of attention to detail and thoroughgoing scholarship, combined with finely-honed skepticism, in dealing with one of the less understood figures in Meiji Japan. Through his ability to see through to the "why" in conventional scholarship, Chuck was able to write a convincing and human account of Saigo Takamori which successfully challenges the established ideas about the oligarch.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: This is a worthwhile read, mainly because it is the only book in English on a fascinating subject: the life of Saigo Takamori. Much credit is to be given to Yates for exposing the true Saigo, which is quite different from the Saigo myth that has grown up in Japan over the last 130 years. Many pages are devoted to what Saigo's true motivations and skills were. My biggest disappointment was the lack of any detail about the military operations that Saigo conducted. The worst example of this is that the entire 7-month Seinan War is covered in about 2 pages.