FUTURE PROJECTS
NOW AVAILABLE!
ESSENTIAL HISTORIES:
WAR IN JAPAN, 1467-1615
So much new research has come to light since I wrote the original in 2001 that I have been forced to produce almost a new book. The present version is one in which a richer picture is presented of an age when conflicts were spread far more widely that was hitherto realised, in some cases taking in neighbouring countries. The protagonists are also revealed to have been of a much more heterogeneous nature than the conventional labelling of them as either ‘samurai’ or ‘ashigaru’.
The abundance of new material has given me the opportunity to shorten the narratives of well-known battles such as Shizugatake and Mikata ga Hara to leave space for lesser-known but equally significant conflicts and developments. I have deliberately retained the comparatively brief accounts of battles covered in my previous Osprey books such as Nagashino, Kawanakajima and Osaka to make way for stories of samurai acting as mercenaries, the expeditions to Korea, Taiwan and Okinawa and the little-known campaigns against the Ainu of Hokkaidō.
HŌJŌ: SAMURAI WARLORDS
1487-1590
During the sixteenth century Japan made a dramatic transition in the field of samurai warfare, and Hōjō will be the definitive work on how and why the transformation took place.
This ground-breaking book, which begins where the Ōnin War book ended, will employ the unique structure of tracking five generations of the same Japanese family over a century and a half to illustrate the process in fine detail. This is made possible because the Hōjō lords fought some of the best known battles of the period against famous opponents such as Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin and Toyotomi Hideyoshi and can therefore be regarded as the archetypal samurai warlords of the Sengoku Period.
The text will include my extensive translations of new material from Hōjō Godai ki, including the use of dogs as messengers, the strange treatment of battlefield wounds and some unusual naval warfare.
AVAILABLE LATE 2023
