As Mitsuo Kure points out at the beginning of this excellent account of the samurai, "a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms," there is still considerable scholarly dispute over when the class emerged and precisely what it consisted of.

Though it "led" Japanese society for seven centuries, it is also true, as Kure notes, that "history is written by winners, and in Japan, as in Europe, the ruler often manipulated the record." Consequently, even contemporary documents ought to be assessed with some care, and Edo Period sources are simply not a reliable guide to the historical facts about the medieval age.

Thus, cautiously and occasionally skeptically, Kure leads us through history, following the spoor of this famous but little-understood military class. In so doing he is, of course, also giving us a political history of Japan, and for the beginner this is probably among the most profitable and least painful that we at present have.

Only occasionally do we recognize an unwarranted stance. The warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-89), for example, is called "heroic," a term as illegitimate as it is cliched. Mostly, however, the evaluation is fresh -- "the samurai of the Middle Ages still fought for property, lands and money, and only rarely for honor."