For more than 700 years Japan was dominated by a military caste - the samurai. To the Western mind these fearsome warriors - samurai, the masterless ronin, and the assassin ninja-have always been a source of mystery and wonder, combining the idealism of chivalry with military fanaticism. THE WAYS OF THE SAMURAI digs beneath the myth and reveals a truth even more amazing about the men who practiced a discipline drawn from Zen and Confucian ethics - bushido, the way of the warrior.