Title: Bushido The Way of the WarriorGeneral book on the samurai culture, from the early beginnings till the legacy after the second world war. Only a few famous armor are in the book.
Title: Samurai An Illustrated HistoryNice general samurai overview book with several armors, re-enactors and drawings. The picture on the cover is rather famous as it illustrates that by the time that photography became available, many ‘samurai’ did not know anymore how to put on an armor properly. The sode are reversed…
Title: The Book of the Samurai - The Warrior Class of JapanThis is one of the several books that Stephen R. Turnbull has written about Samurai. This one is a very broad one, and in that sense gives a good overview. Only a few armors ate in the book, but many paintings etc.
Title: Samurai : krijgskunst als levensstijlThis is the Dutch translation of The Way of the Samurai (1983) From Richard Storry with pictures of Werner Forman. Includes a limited number of armor pictures. More included in my library as nostalgia.
Title: Samurai WarriorsA general book on samurai, mainly interesting for the many reproductions of scrolls, illustrations etc (often bit out of focus…). Some armours and kabuto.
Title: Shogun The life of Lord Tokugawa IeyasuVery nice catalog written by Ian Bottomley at the occasion of the exhibition “Shogun: The Life of Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu”, held at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, in collaboration with Nikko Toshogu Shrine in 2005. Lavishly illustrated with Tokugawa related armours, documents, fold out screen reproductions, and many other items.
Title: Famous Warriors of 16th Century JapanSmall booklet published by W. M. Hawley with some reproductions from Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi’s Ehon Toyotomi Kunkoki. The booklet focusses on some samurai portraits from this famous series, but Hawley published a bigger book with about 600 reproductions.
Title: The age of the samuraiNice book that was published during the process of creating the exhibition “Samurai – A Thousand Years of Cults in Culture” in Malmö in 2004. Although the book is more focussed on the Samurai culture as a whole, it is interesting from an armour perspective as some armours from the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Kunstkamera (St. Petersburg) are in here.
