Reviews for Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan

The average rating for Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-08-24 00:00:00 Izzy Fandel While not quite has great has his handling of Taira Masakado in "The First Samurai" this earlier volume, "Hired Swords" was an excellent read. I have found both volume's by Friday to be extremely well written. There is something to be said about very clear, well worded prose; he's like the Hemingway of historians. "Hired Swords" a fairly technical treatment of the rise of Heian period warriors/warefare and skirts edge between common/accessable history and scholarly/esoteric historiography. Basically he takes an obvious question, if ~1180 results of the gempei war inaugurated the rise of Warrior Japan, from where did all the mechanism for the creation of all those warriors come from, and when? With it comes a changing point of view of Heian period Japan and re-reviewing a "wasted and effeminate era." Granted I've read a number of books post Hall 1960 and Friday 1992 that have pretty much accepted the 'updated' view of Early imperial Japan, so it did take away some of the lustre, I suppose if I had known I would have tried reading this one sooner. That aside, I'm still glad to have read the argument directly, and see how he arrived at the conclusions he did. Anyways, 5 stars, though it's incomparable to "First Samuarai" his book on Taira Masakado, due to it's technical nature it's far more important to the historical narative in general.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-04 00:00:00 Patricio Alvarez Excellent book on subtle but far-reaching changes in Japan government from 8th Century 'til around 11th Century. In a similar way to the fall of the Roman Empire (later East and West Empires) where the introduction of mercenaries slowly brought the entire Roman world to the end and gave birth to numerous fiefdoms and warlords and finally to feudal system, privatization of military and police powers in Japan started with the goal of reducing overall cost of military and police infrastructure management but finally brought the end to the Japanese central government of the day. The author manages to show how these changes started small but slowly crept in and finally completely changed the political and governmental organization of the Japan leading finally to medieval, feudal age where Samurai were true wielders of the power. In a way, this can be treated as a cautionary tale for our own times. Highly recommended.