Being part of the United States military enables you to experience culture first hand, but to truly understand a culture requires not only visiting a country or region, but immersion in books, food, traditions and language. It requires patience, a constantly curious mind and commitment.

This review focuses on how to experience a culture through reading, and will focus on a recent book that is the author’s journey to discover what became of a single Samurai sword. This single task undertaken in 2000, led Christopher Ross on an intimate journey through Japan’s culture, sub-cultures, language, traditions, heritage, mythology and ways in which heritage can be manipulated in destructive ways. It is part travel book, part detective story and part historical journey with short biographies of the men and women who keep the traditions of Japan’s sword making alive today.

Admiral James Stavridis, USN said it best, when he advised me that certain books of fiction can enhance my understanding of Latin American revolutionary history. The admiral’s suggestion gave me a much needed break from my total immersion in understanding and advising on Middle East affairs and Islamist militant groups and look into works of fictions as a means of understanding a region like Latin America, Japan and the Middle East. ‘‘Mishima’s Sword” gave me a chance to rediscover Japanese culture and relive the images of my pre-teens when I spent 10 weeks with my father traveling in Japan.

The author, Christopher Ross, studied martial arts, and spent five years in Japan learning the language while at the same time teaching English. Ross now lives in Paris. His book begins with the gory and tragic end of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, who was a three-time nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He committed suicide with a samurai sword in 1970. In 1966, a fellow aspiring writer Hiroshi Funasaka, as a means of thanking Mishima, allowed him to pick from among his collection of antique samurai swords.

You enter Funasaka’s room and enter the language of the samurai swords, held by koshirae (sword furniture), the nakago (the sword-makers signature on the hilt end of the naked blade), Mishima picks up a sword and looks for its balance point in his hand. The sword he picks is a 16th-century blade, or is it? Read and discover.

You will learn of sword testers who practiced a gruesome task and in 1797 published Kaiho Kenjaku that ranked swords into superlative, superb, excellent and super sharpness. These were determined in the past by cuts made into human corpses. What is considered to be the most admired figure in Japan is Saigo the Great; you will read who took a last stand in what would be the Satsuma Rebellion. To explore this figure, born in 1827, is to understand some of Japan’s military societies of World War II, such as the Young Officers.

Although not clear the story of this figure resembles the character, The Last Samurai, by Ivan Morris and made into a Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe. The book explains the complexity of bushido, which comes from the root word shido, or way of the knightly class, and consisting of three competing versions (pragmatic, statist and romantic).

The book continues with a master sword maker, hilt wrapper, sword polisher and scabbard maker. Each craft and art is a delicate art that very few masters who still exist, because it is a way of life and skill to create a finished samurai sword. ‘‘Mishima’s Sword” would offer surprises of discovery for the author and is recommended reading for those wanting to get serious about orienting themselves to aspects of Japanese tradition and how it adjusts to the 21st century.

Editor’s Note: Lt. Cmdr. Aboul-Enein is a Middle East analyst, who has an interest in studying different types of warfare history, tactics, and strategy. He wishes to thank PS1 (AW⁄SW) David Tranberg, USN President of the First Class Petty Officer Association for his edits and insightful comments that enhanced this review.