Book
The Taiheiki
First published 1959
The Taiheiki recounts the crisis that destroyed the Kamakura shogunate and divided fourteenth-century Japan between rival imperial courts. Emperor Go-Daigo’s attempts to overthrow Hōjō rule bring exile, rebellion and restoration, while commanders including Kusunoki Masashige, Nitta Yoshisada and Ashikaga Takauji shift allegiance as the political settlement collapses into renewed war.
Helen Craig McCullough’s translation presents the opening books of this major gunki monogatari, or warrior tale. Court politics, sieges, battlefield exploits and Buddhist ideas of impermanence are interwoven with Chinese historical examples and moral reflection, making the work both a literary epic and an essential narrative of the transition from Kamakura to the Northern and Southern Courts.
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