Author, Researcher and Lecturer with a Passion for History, Music and Japan
The timing of the publication of Bushido could hardly have been better. Years later, Nitobe claimed that he invented the term, and even the eminent scholar of Japan, Basil Hall Chamberlain, for once overshooting the mark, stated in his essay, The Invention of a New Religion (1911) that it had…
Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust (Goethe, Faust 1, verse 1112) Two souls, alas! reside within my breast (transl. Bayard Taylor, 1887) ‘Scratch a Japanese of the most advanced ideas, and he will show a samurai.’ (Bushido, p.89). Such is the essence of Inazo Nitobe’s (1862-1933) message in his…