"Books on military history of Ancient Japan" Topic

Hi everybody!

As said in the title, where I can find info on military history of Ancient Japan like Yayoi, Kofun and Asuka eras?

I'm looking for something on weapons, warfare and organization of the armies. Even academic journal articles are welcome.

look up the author Stephen Turnbull.

I have an old bibliography at the end of an article on army lists for these periods, at link – though a lot of the links to online stuff will be broken now. Your best bets as a starting point are William Farris and Karl Friday.

Ritta's "History of Japanese Armor Volume 1" is also recommended – hlj.com/product/MDG22954

The place to start is Turnbull's "The Samurai Source Book"
If you' Going to get into serious Samurai games Killer Katanas2"
has a tremendous amount of clan and personality
Markspecific data.

The Osprey Elite 35 "Early Samurai" covers some of the early period.

Karl Friday touches on the warfare of the earlier period in his 'Samurai, Warfare and the State,' mainly as a comparison to how warfare developed into the 'samurai' period, so there's not a great deal of material there.

I've not got Ritta Nakanishi's 'History of Japanese armour volume 1,' linked by GurKhan above, but if it's anything like volume 2 it's exactly what you want.

Another recommendation for "History of Japanese Armor Volume 1 – Yayoi to Muromachi" by Nakanishi Ritta here. Lavishly illustrated and with lots of detailed original research. Main text is in Japanese but picture captions have English translations by Brian Keaney. It can be difficult to get hold of outside of Japan and the USA. I obtained my copy from On Military Matters (USA) and it was worth every penny (On a side note it is clear the "Total War" computer game team had a copy of this when the did the Genpei War "Rise of the Samurai" DLC for Shogun 2).

link

I've also got many of the works on GurKhan's (Duncan Head) list so in complete agreement there too – especially "Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan's Military, 500-1300" by Farris. Sorry but can't recommend anything by Turnbull for the ancient period as his main focus is late medieval/renaissance Japan (Sengoku era)

Karl Friday touches on the warfare of the earlier period in his 'Samurai, Warfare and the State,' mainly as a comparison to how warfare developed into the 'samurai' period, so there's not a great deal of material there.

His earlier "Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan" (1992) is more use for the early periods being enquired about.

("Short History of Japanese Armor") can be difficult to get hold of outside of Japan and the USA.

Don't know where the original poster is, but I ordered my copy direct from HLJ in Japan.

The place to start is Turnbull's "The Samurai Source Book"

Since the enquiry is about the periods before the samurai, then no, it really isn't.

You're right, didn't fully read the post