Giving up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 Book

This is a significant story, and Perrin tells it marvelously well, with rich detail, captivating quotations from observers of the time, both Japanese and Western, and a wealth of revealing comparisons with contemporary technology, warfare, and life in Europe. This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read.—Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

Professor Noel Perrin has written an elegant monograph, magnificently illustrated with a wealth of Japanese prints.—New York Times Book Review

Through his description of one historical event in Japan's national experience, Noel Perrin has written a book as tight and elegant as haiku. The story is a fascinating one: Japan's introduction to, mastery of, and subsequent abandonment of, the gun.. Perrin's work is so crisp and interesting, and so loaded with background information and revealing anecdotes, that the whole peculiar episode it describes jumps to life from its pages.—The New Republic

[Perrin] has set down a fascinating story, one which has long been inaccessible to the West. Giving Up the Gun, written for general readership, is throughly enjoyable-filled with marvelous anecdotes and illustrations.—Washington Post Book World