First published in 1970 by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
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Copyright © 2012 Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-121274
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0623-9 (ebook)
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Contents
Among flowers, the cherry blossom;
among men, the samurai.
—Japanese proverb
Foreword
The Raid of the Forty-seven Ronin holds a unique place in Japanese history. There is nothing quite like it, and John Allyn’s masterful retelling of the tale captures for modern readers much of the excitement with which the Japanese populace of the mid-eighteenth century would have responded to what for them was the equivalent of a newspaper sensation.
Yet modern readers have more in common with them than mere excitement, because, like the Japanese of contemporary Edo, we are forced to look at the story through a very large distorting lens. This
