• Ninja Book
• by Stephen Turnbull
• Hardcover Book
• Great read

Ninja: The True Story of Japan's Secret Warrior Cult Description

This book is the first full and truly revealing account of the Ninja, the Japanese clandestine warrior cult of assassins and spies that has acquired a legendary status among martial arts enthusiasts and military historians.
Stephen Turnbull has used all of his renowned expertise in the history of medieval Japan and the Samurai in order to produce this major work.
From material previously unpublished in the West, he recounts the history, battles, science, mysticism and even the modern aspects of the Ninja. Many of the sources for this book are his own translations from Japanese archives, material made available only to Stephen Turnbull for this important new work.
It is a book that will change significantly many current ideas about the Ninja. Unlike other titles
- with their "martial arts" emphasis - this is the real story and seems destined to become the standard work. Many myths about the Ninja are exploded, but the truth emerges here as far stronger than any fiction.
Dr Masaaki Hatsumi, the famous Grandmaster of ninjutsu, has provided a Foreword to the book, a significant and a special endorsement of the Stephen Turnbull's unique status as the Western author of Japanese military history.

There is no greater indication of the familiarity of a concept than that the word expressing it enters a foreign language with no need for translation. During the last 50 or so years, Japan has furnished the English language with several such words, nearly all of which have military connections; 'samurai', 'hara-kiri', 'kamikaze' - and more recently
'shogun' are all examples. Now we have another to join them - 'ninja'.
The ninja represent the dark side of the world of the samurai. In contrast to the image of the noble, fearless warrior, facing squarely on to his worthy opponent with drawn sword, the ninja is a creature of darkness and stealth, whose craft is guile, treachery and murder. The art of the overt warrior is thus replaced by the arts of the covert; here the skills that are most prized are not death-defying charges or challenges to noble opponents and expert swordsmanship, but rather those of subterfuge and deception.
Thus, the history of the ninja is a vital part of the history of the samurai of Japan that many samurai may have preferred to have remained unwritten. In fact, much of it remained just so. Nevertheless, a surprising amount was indeed recorded, sometimes in pride, sometimes in disgust - and most commonly of all, with a shrugging acceptance that in the ways of men ideals of behaviour often need a little help from that which is considered less than perfect.
The history of the ninja encompasses guerrilla warfare, assassination, espionage, magic and mysticism. It is not therefore surprising that the ninja should have surpassed every other breed of Japanese fighting man by being transformed into a modern-day cult, in which the historical figure grows into a superman who walks on water and flies through the air. What is remarkable is that this tendency to grant magical and superhuman powers to the ninja is at least three centuries old. Records of exploits which lift ninja above ordinary human accomplishments date from the latter part of the sixteenth century, and the popular image of the 'man in black' can be found in book illustrations as early as the 1780s. Add to this an amalgam of hero-legends, esoteric religious practices, magic and invisibility, and you arrive at the 'super' samurai - the ninja of today. In this book I intend to show that the truth about the ninja is every bit as strange as the fiction, and often much more impressive. The fiction will however not be neglected, for many ninja stories have a foundation in truth.

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