Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai

The founder of Japan's first modern corporation was a swaggering swordsman who packed a Smith and Wesson, an outlaw who led a band of samurai to overthrow the shogun, and one of the most colorful figures in Japanese history. His name was Ryoma, which is the title of the only biographical novel in English about this charismatic leader of the samurai revolution (i.e., Meiji Restoration). It is the authentic story of Ryoma's key role in the revolution, by which Japan was transformed from a country of hundreds of samurai clans under the control of the Tokugawa Shogun, into a modern industrialized world power under the unifying rule of the Emperor. Mid-19th-century Japan was a caldron of political upheaval and intrigue and bloody inner-fighting among samurai. This most enthralling age in the annals of Japan brought forth some of the most fascinating men in that nation's history. Those men modernized Japan, and laid the foundation for the militarism of WWII and the economic powerhouse of today. This close look into the hearts and minds of those two-sworded men provides a deep insight into the political, cultural, and psychological roots of modern Japan.