The Nobility of Failure; Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Fair. xxiii, [3], 500, [2] pages. Business card paperclipped to half title page. List of Maps and Illustrations, Dedication. Acknowledgments. Outline Chronology. Introduction. Chapters on Yamato Takeru, Oh, Lone Pine Tree; Yorozu, The Emperor's Shield; Arima No Miko, The Melancholy Prince; Sugawara No Michizane, The Deity of Failures; Minamoto No Yoshitsune, Victory Through Defeat; Kusunoki Masashige, Seven Lives for the Nation; Amakusa Shiro, The Japanese Messiah; Oshio Heihachiro, Save the People!; Saigo Takamori, The Apotheosis of Saigo the Great; and The Kamikaze Fighters, If Only We Might Fall. Contains Illustrations Between Pages 70 and 71, Maps, and Illustrations between Pages 198 and 199, and illustrations between Pagers 294 and 295. Glossary, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. This work relates the fateful lives of nine historic individuals, men who pitted themselves against overwhelming odds and, despite vast resources of courage and determination, were eventually crushed by superior forces. These lonely and poignant figures were on the losing side, fated to end their days either in solitary exile, as hunted fugitives, or in ritual suicide. They include a nineteen-year-old prince whose death climaxed a royal intrigue of similarity to Hamlet: a samurai destroyed by his elder brother, an youth who led an insurrection of Japanese Christians, and the imposing Saigo Takamori, catalyst of the Meiji imperial restoration. This chain of nine individuals leads finally to a group familiar to most contemporary Westerners, but never before so affectingly realized; the kamikaze pilots of World War II. Ivan Ira Esme Morris (29 November 1925 - 19 July 1976) was an English author and teacher in the field of Japanese Studies. He wrote widely on modern and ancient Japan and translated numerous classical and modern literary works. Ivan Morris was one of the first interpreters sent into Hiroshima after the explosion of the bomb. Morris served on the faculty of Columbia University from 1960 to 1973 and was chairman of Columbia's Department of East Asian languages and Cultures from 1966 to 1969. In 1966 he was elected a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He was a friend of Yukio Mishima; he wrote The Nobility of Failure partly to place the circumstances surrounding Mishima's death in historical context. The book is dedicated to Mishima's memory. Long recognized as a core book in any study of Japanese culture and literature, The Nobility of Failure examines the lives and deaths of nine historical individuals who faced overwhelming odds, and, realizing they were doomed, accepted their fate--to be killed in battle or by execution, to wither in exile, or to escape through ritual suicide. Morris then turns his attention to the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who gave their lives in defense of their nation in the full realization that their deaths would have little effect on the course of the war. Through detail, crystal-clear prose and unmatched narrative sweep and brilliance, Professor Morris takes you into the innermost hearts of the Japanese people. From a review found on-line by Michael Hoffman: Who hasn't at one time or another suspected that failure is nobler than success? Here the British historian Ivan Morris celebrates Japanese heroes who refused to make the compromises success all too often demands. They fail, but fail gloriously, reaping the posthumous reward of deathless fame. Morris' portraits span the ages, from the semi-mythical Yamato Takeru of the fourth century to the inspired but doomed kamikaze pilots of World War II. In between are figures of near legendary status: sixth-century Yorozu; 12th-century Yoshitsune no Minamoto; 17th-century Amakusa Shiro, the "Japanese messiah"; 19th-century Saigo Takamori — warriors all, who died splendidly on the losing side. In other countries they'd have fallen into history's dust bin; in Japan, they, not those who vanquished them and survived to shape the future, became heroes of the popular imagination. Yorozu fought for the native religion against foreign Buddhism — and lost. Yoshitsune, a brilliant fighter, aroused his more powerful brother's jealousy — and lost. The disastrous Christian peasant revolt led by Amakusa Shiro, all of 15 years old, was quashed so brutally Christianity didn't raise its head again in Japan for 250 years. Saigo Takamori championed the old samurai order against modern industrial values. He had no chance, and he knew it. He fought on, regardless. Why the reverence accorded these losers? Morris explains: "In a predominantly conformist society ... rash, defiant, emotionally honest men like Yoshitsune and Takamori have a particular appeal.".