This is one of the best books on Bushido & what it means to be a samurai. It is a must read for anyone interested in samurai or Bushido. The Hagakure, is translated as "In the Shadow of Leaves" or "Hidden Leaves."

The Hagakure is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of commentaries by the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo, former retainer to Nabeshima Mitsushige, the third ruler of what is now the Saga prefecture in Japan. Tsuramoto Tashiro compiled these commentaries from his conversations with Tsunetomo from 1709 to 1716; however, it was not published until many years afterwards. Hagakure is also known as The Book of the Samurai, Analects of Nabeshima or Hagakure Analects.

The book records Tsunetomo's views on bushido, the warrior code of the samurai. Hagakure is sometimes said to assert that bushido is really the "Way of Dying" or living as though one was already dead, and that a samurai retainer must be willing to die at any moment in order to be true to his lord.


After his master died, Tsunetomo himself was forbidden to perform junshi, a retainer's ritual suicide, by an edict of the Tokugawa Shogunate combined with his master's disapproval of the tradition. Hagakure may have been written partially in an effort to outline the role of the samurai in a more peaceful society. Several sections refer to the "old days", and imply a dangerous weakening of the samurai class since that time.

The Hagakure was written approximately one hundred years after the start of the Tokugawa era, a time of relative peace. With no major campaigns to fight, the samurai were transforming from a warrior to an administrative class. His work represents one approach to the problem of maintaining military preparedness and a proper military mindset in a time when neither has much practical application.

Hagakure was not widely known during the decades following Tsunetomo's death. However, it received wider circulation at the start of the 20th century, and by the 1930s had become one of the most famous representations of bushido thought in Japan. Hagakure remains popular among many non-Japanese who are interested in samurai culture. It is also frequently referred to as The Book of the Samurai.

Hagakure was also used as the basis for the film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, where the main protagonist follows Hagakure strictly in accordance to his own life as a hired hitman for the Italian Mafia and reads quotations from it during the course of the film.

Robert Greene makes several references to Hagakure in his works. The bushido "way of the warrior" is extensively referred to in a chapter entitled Create a Sense of Urgency and Desperation: The Death-Ground Strategy which is the fourth chapter in his book The 33 Strategies of War. It discusses living while acknowledging possible death.

Please do yourself a favor & read this amazing work. You'll not be disappointed. Read the thread on Yamamoto Tsunetomo to learn about the author.