How a samurai classic shared Japanese values with the West

In 1899, Inazo Nitobe published a book in English called “Bushido: The Soul of Japan.” Nitobe was born into a samurai family and later became a Christian. He wrote the book after a Belgian legal scholar asked him how Japan taught morality without religious instruction in its schools. Nitobe came to realize the answer was the samurai ethics he had grown up with. He described them through seven virtues: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor and loyalty.

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