The Fighting Spirit of Japan, by E. J. Harrison

. (Ernest) J. Harrison has been nicknamed the grandfather of all the Western budo pioneers. He worked as a journalist in Japan before the turn of the 20th century, where he trained ju jitsu, and judo at a later stage. "The Fighting Spirit of Japan" was printed in 1913. At the time it did set a new and solid standard on how to shed a light and bringing insights to the old fighting arts of Japan (and in the Orient for that matter). Today it is regarded as the basic work on the martial arts of Japan and the life during the time that was to be named the Meiji-periode.

A clear indication on the importance of this piece of work is that it has been printed several times, and continue to be reprinted, even today. The older of the two that you can see here (the green one), has no visible year of printing, but I would give a rough estimate, and say that it is from the fifties. The lower version was originally a reprint from 1982, while this particular book is from the year 2000. From what I can see the two are identical contentwise.

In this book Harrison discusses the  "esoteric", or "spiritual" parts of the martial arts. As you can see this is not a training manual, or a book full of techniques. He talks about judo and ju jitsu, kenjutsu (sword-arts), sumo, aikido and karate. Furthermore he looks at the role of women in Japan at the time, the art of zen and a bunch of other topics. Being a journalist, it is no surprise that Harrison is a solid writer. It is also quite easy to see that he has a lot of knowledge and a profound respect for the Japanese culture and the theme he is writing about.

You can read more about E. J. Harrison, judo and ju jitsu on these pages: "The Art of Ju-Jitsu" (click here), and: "Easy-to-learn Jiu Jitsu" (click here).

Some of the content may seem a little strange and dated viewed with our modern-day eyes. Still (and maybe even so because of this fact!) this is a book that is absolutely essential to any student of the martial arts. If you teach or train judo or ju jitsu you simply must read Harrisons books!

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