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I think calling the book controversial is too strong. Maybe "highly romanticised" (as quoted in the above rather good BBC culture article) is a better descripti
by rubin55 4y ago
I think calling the book controversial is too strong. Maybe "highly romanticised" (as quoted in the above rather good BBC culture article) is a better description.
The "Legends of the Samurai" book sounds interesting and worth a read too.
My take: Just read, make up your own mind, disregard labels like controversial, westernized, etc. Those come off as trying to tell me what one should read and what one should not read, which should raise alarm-bells.
- rramadass 4y agoYou can read whatever you like but should strive to find out whether it is/was factual (assuming non-fiction). When it comes to Cultural/Social/Historical accounts of any Civilization this becomes even more important since so much has been lost and hence needs to be rediscovered/recreated. Nothing is simple and homogeneous but interpretations, point-of-view, agency all matter. When the "West" discovered the "alien East", partial knowledge, romanticization, Social/Cultural Darwinism were the coloured lenses through which they interpreted everything. Thus all accounts were necessarily incomplete and distorted but once they were written down became "gospel". This is why "Historical Revisionism" (in the positive sense) is so important nowadays.
- rubin55 4y agoYou should always strive to understand the context in which something is written, meaning the times, the habits of those times, its biases etc. I don't think we're better off with a group-consensus "historical revisionism" to "guide us". Again, I would call to think for ourselves, read and make up our own minds.