Japan's Historic Battlefields

About this book

Written and produced in Japan by Aki Wakamatsu. Japan's history was decided on its battlefields — and this complete guide walks all 200 of the most important: the Genpei War's tide-races and cliff descents, Kurikara's fire-oxen pass and Dan-no-ura's drowned court, the Mongol landings at Hakata and Takashima, Sekigahara's single decisive afternoon, the Sanada defences at Ueda, Aizu's tragedy at Wakamatsu and Iimori, and the memorial landscapes of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa, where remembrance itself is the story. Every entry follows one format — The Battlefield / What Happened / The Land Today / Visiting & Remembrance — treats war factually and without glorification, states plainly what survives and what can be visited, and never asserts current access: each entry ends with an official-check instruction naming its own site. Includes a How to Read a Battlefield introduction, practical chapters on conduct at memorial sites, five model itineraries and a glossary. Honest count: the 200 are battlefields, siege sites, turning-point places and memorial landscapes; restricted or viewpoint-only sites are labelled as such in their entries.