I knew very little then. This book seemed very comprehensive and easy to read. It addresses many subjects and explains such dynamics that led to the emergence of very clearly Samurai. I particularly liked the various quotes written peasants complaining of their directors: they vividly illustrate the point. The star deleted does not match the contents of the book but the layout: some errors suggest that a character recognition software was used to scan handwritten pages and verification was not enough. For example, many doccurrences the "army" were replaced by the word "year". This is sometimes difficult to read.