Western scholars and educators are generally far less familiar with the samurai in his original and ostensibly primary role as warrior and masters of arms than in his other functions as landowner feudal lord literature or philosopher Yet any attempt to comprehend fully the samurai without considering his military abilities and training bugei is futile With verve and wit Karl Friday combines the results of nearly two decades of fieldwork and archival research to examine samurai martial culture from a broad perspective as a historical phenomenon as a worldview and as a system of physical spiritual and moral education