Japan
Hojo Masako: The Nun Shogun
One of the unexpectedly side effects of writing this book on women warriors* is that I’m accumulating stories of amazing women who don’t fit in the book. Some of them don’t fit the definition I’ve struggled to craft. In some cases, there isn’t enough information available–or at least not enough information available in a language…
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Blown Away: The (Attempted) Mongol Invasion of Japan
Japan had expected the Mongol invasion for years. In 1266, Kublai Khan, the new Mongol emperor of China, sent envoys to Japan with a letter addressed to the “King of Japan”–a title guaranteed to offend the Japanese emperor. The letter itself was equally unpalatable. The Great Khan “invited” Japan to send envoys to the Mongol…
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Female Samurai: Warriors and Otherwise
Female samurais are stock figures in modern anime, manga, western comic books, and fantasy novels: hard-fighting, often hard-drinking, badasses with swords and bows. The key word is fantasy. In medieval Japan, samurai was a class distinction as well as a job description. Women who were born into the samurai class were samurais whether or not…
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