Book Reviews

Paul Varley, who passed away in 2015, was a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University for many years before coming to the University of Hawai’i. He specialized in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. Varley's book, Warriors of Japan...

The Story of Tutankhamun by egyptologist Garry J. Shaw is a brilliantly written new biography of the boy king, spanning from his birth and early life under his father Akhenaten’s new religious regime, all the way up to his death and the discovery...

Stephen Gaukroger, Emeritus Professor of History of Philosophy and Science at the University of Sydney, presents a fresh viewpoint toward examining the history of Western philosophy. His book The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay...

This is a fairly old book since it was first published in 1996, but it remains the best English-language introduction to the history of the warrior class in ancient Japan. In English, Japanese warriors are usually referred to as ‘samurai’...

Japan is known for many different things, but one popular image associated with the country is that of the ‘samurai’. Especially, many people admire the idea of the ‘samurai spirit’ encapsulated in the concept of ‘bushido’ – the ‘way of the...

Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life is a biography of the famous Carthaginian leader Hannibal Barca, who lived between 247 and 188 BCE. Son of the brilliant general Hamilcar, who had taken part in the First Punic War (264-241 BCE), Hannibal inherited...

The story of the forty-seven samurai is a well-known tale not only in Japan but also around the world. There are many different versions but the plot always revolves around a group of warriors carrying out a vendetta in order to get revenge...

To argue whether the Vikings or Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot in America is more of an argument of religious and heritage pride than archaeological evidence. In Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth, Gordon...

In modern popular culture, the long war between science and religion is an exciting history of the Western civilization if not the whole world. Scientists battling priests or religious leaders over how the world was created dominate our perception...

Elodie Harper has once again produced a captivating historical fiction novel that takes you right into the streets and the homes of ancient Pompeii. Set in 75 CE, Pompeii is still a thriving Roman town, looked on by Venus Pompeiana, the patron...