D. Colin Jaundrill

One can take the tile of this book as an efficient description of the contents. Starting with the introduction of modern marksmanship to late Tokugawa Japan, Jaundrill examines the twists and turns in how the Meiji regime came to dismantle the samurai class in favor of a conscript army led by professional officers. The irony in all this is how many of the traditional warriors who forced the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate ultimately found themselves on the losing end of the stick. Probably not the first book you should read on the topic, Edward Drea's "Japan's Imperial Army" would be a good starting point, but what Jaundrill does well is to trace the tortuous process of making the "new model" army stick.… (más)