The Dawn of the Warrior Age

The war between the Heike and Genji clans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is among the most compelling and significant moments in Japan’s history, immortalized in The Tale of the Heike. Beyond the events recorded in this canonical text, the conflicts of the surrounding years are crucial to medieval Japanese culture and history. In 1156, power began to slip away from the court nobility in Kyoto. A shogunate was later founded in Kamakura, and in 1221, it won a decisive victory over the court. The three war tales translated in this book tell the story of these critical decades, vividly recording stages in the passage from rule by the imperial court in Kyoto to rule by the warrior government in Kamakura. “The Tale of the Hogen Years” recounts a deposed emperor’s disastrous attempt to regain the throne in 1156. “The Tale of the Heiji Years” narrates a bloody clash between rival courtier factions in 1159. “An Account of the Jokyu Years” records Kamakura’s victory over the imperial