Samurai and Silk

Samurai and Silk is a rare treasure: a book of penetrating insight into the Japanese character and the forging of modern Japan from the feudal Tokugawa shoguns to present day economic titans. Only Haru Reischauer could have written this extraordinary family account, beginning with her two illustrious grandfathers: one, a provincial samurai who became a founding father of the Meiji government; the other, a scion of a wealthy and enterprising peasant family who almost single-handedly developed the silk trade with America. Their remarkable stories, and those of their notable descendants, demonstrate the unbounded vision and determination that explain so much about Japan's legendary success.

Samurai and Silk is beautifully written, with a sense of intimacy that only firsthand experience and family traditions could confer. It is also a work of broad historical value, since both grandfathers played a major role in reshaping Japan and laying the foundations of its modern economic power., [Haru Reischauer] is a sensitive and skilled biographer and storyteller. Full of charm and insight… Samurai and Silk is at once an autobiography, a double biography, and a family saga covering three generations. It is a treat to read… Samurai and Silk may be the Japan book of the year, and one does not have to be an old Japan hand to savor its pleasures., What gives Samurai and Silk special value is that it approaches the story of modern Japan through that of Mrs. Reischauer’s own family. This has made possible the use of family records not only to give point and liveliness to much of what she writes, but also, because of the particular strands of lineage that came together in her parents’ generation, to demonstrate some of the central realities of Japanese modernization., The book offers a superb portrait, containing both the broad strokes and the fine details of a crucial era in Japan’s history.

Edwin O. Reischauer was University Professor at Harvard University.