State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan - Book Report/Review Example

 Exploration of Conlan’s State of War The renowned historian, Thomas Conlan has written various books analyzing the state of prehistoric Japan. The historian specializes in the portrayal of the Samurai and the military history of Japan. In doing this, he covers finer details of the prehistoric Japan often covering some finer details in his works most historians would ignore about the country. Among his most celebrated works is State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan, a book in which he analyses the various social and cultural factors that caused internal conflicts thereby resulting in the serious of military revolution as the modern day super power strived to find its footing. The book analyses various cultures of the people of prehistoric Japan thereby developing a chronological account of the wars and their respective effects. History is a chronological account of events often portraying the features and social developments of a society. Most historians use existing evidences and accounts from other literature materials to construct the series of events, as they perceive them to have occurred. Conlan employs the same strategy in his book as he develops a chronology of military events that led to the creation of the modern day Japan. The Samurai and the development of strong military powers in the country were results of various social, cultural and economic conflicts as various communities strived to develop lasting kingdoms. Boundaries and economic factors were among the key factors that necessitated most of the wars. Most societies therefore developed effective and definite militaries and samurais that would serve as stand by soldiers in most of the military inversions. The author strived to earn legitimacy to his work by providing finer details and corroboration to his claims. The provision of statistical evidence in the book earns the historical account more legitimacy. He strived to provide evidence of the works. In each chapter, Conlan provides a detailed statistical account of the flow of weaponry, casualties and the number of soldiers in every battle and military outfit. The pragmatic approach to his historical account and the provision of statistical evidence to his narration eliminates mistakes from the work besides the fact that the existence of such material at the end of the chapter makes for easier referencing. Most historians simply provide such subsidiary information in their glossary at the end of the entire book thereby making referencing and confirmation more difficult. Conlan,s ability to provide adequate evidence for every chapter makes the book more appropriate to most history enthusiasts. Furthermore, such evidence legitimizes the prehistoric military features of the society such as Samurai most of which serious historians often ignore. Conlan adopts a narrative approach in the book, coupled with various charts and stats makes the historical account more organized and easy to read. The charts and stats corroborate the facts he explains in the narrative. Furthermore, they also break monotony from the numerous paragraphs thereby making the book easy to read. The end of chapter glossary provides an in-depth analysis to the charts and stats in the chapter thereby making them easy to understand. As explained earlier, history is a chronological account of events that lead to state of affairs. The narrative approach to the book readily depicts the chronological account since the facts easily complement each other thereby developing the chronological account (Conlan 31). The charts, stats and glossaries at the end of every chapter thus prove Conlan as an academician who strives to corroborate his claims with provable statistical evidence. The mundane militaries of the time had their own bureaucracies. Conlan analyses the effects and influences of the bureaucracies from the first chapter. Coordination and organization was fundamental in military organizations even to the contemporary societies. The organization was strategic with hundreds of thousands foot soldiers with numerous commanders risking in ranks depending on their age and experience in war. The formation of groups helped with the coordination and facilitated communication. This enhanced the activities of the soldiers at war with all the soldiers bearing great loyalty to their immediate commander. The flow of loyalty led all the way to the royalties who served as the commanders in chief of their militaries. The military, called the samurai in most of the societies thus became fundamental aspects of the societies since they provided the region with the fundamental security, law and order at the times that the societies remained volatile. The military development at the time and the increase in warfare at the time portrayed the social and cultural features at the time. The supremacy wars were result of constant societal restructuring. The royalties always wanted to increase the size of their kingdoms. With larger kingdoms, the royalties benefited from immense wealth and influence. The various kingdoms thus raided each other with the view of acquiring more land and increased resources. The wining team would always gain both the lands and population thereby increasing the sizes of their kingdoms and military might as they acquired more population thus more soldiers. Inversions thus became a means of displaying military might a feature that substantiates the frequency of the wars as each kingdom invaded another once the royalty was assured of a greater military might. The rampant inversion later became a social feature as culture began conflicting as kingdoms increased their sizes. People intermarried thereby overcoming various cultural challenges thereby strengthening the social fabric of the Japanese society. Loyalty was an important feature in the development and organization of the militaries. The soldiers owed their lives to their kings; they therefore served in the military faithfully and obediently often waiting for order communicated by their various commanders. To instil both discipline and loyalty in the military organizations and the samurai groups, the leaders of the societies made the groups prestigious. The young men in the societies thus wished to serve in the groups. The societies held the soldiers in high esteem a strategy used by the kings to ensure that the future generations offered their services to the groups voluntarily. The appreciation of the group included adequate remuneration in the form of consideration as the state provide for all their needs. Additionally, the training incorporated high standards of discipline to ensure that the samurai and the soldiers exhibited the highest standards of discipline in the society. This helped facilitate the organization and management of the large groups of soldiers. Conlan provides evidence of the soldiers punished for various acts of disobedience and the types of punishments for every type of indiscipline. The author also analyses the types of weapons the military organizations used at the time, despite the absence of the modern day sophisticated weaponry, the prehistoric Japanese had their own effective weapons of the time. The Samurais for example practiced and trained on martial arts thereby achieving a level of fitness capable of taking down a number of individuals without the aid of a weapon. This made the soldiers useful even after losing their weapons in the battle. The soldiers used swords, bows and arrows among other crude weapons that proved efficient at the time. Conlan provides a statistical evidence of the weaponry used at the time. Swords were the most proffered by the soldiers. The samurai for example trained on the use of soldiers in the warfare. They also used bows, slings and hand knives among other weapons. The effectiveness of an army thus relied on the size of the army. This way, the soldier would compensate for the large casualty thereby cushioning their territories. The discipline and the motivation coupled with the efficient use of the crude weapons and the physical fitness earned most of the kingdoms the desired victories in warfare. In retrospect, Conlan investigates the development and the organization of the prehistoric Japanese society thereby developing the chronological account of events in his historical recap, State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan. The book is a basic read to any historian interested in investigating the development of the Japanese society. The author employs simple grammatical composition thereby widening his target audience base. The provision of statistical evidence in charts and stats in the pages and at the end of every chapter makes the reading even simpler and easy to understand. The book thus portrays the facts of the warfare explicitly using the simple language and provision of evidence. Work cited Conlan, Thomas. State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan. Brunswick: Bowdoin College, 2000. Print. Read More