The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is one of the first anthropological studies done on Japan. Ruth Benedict, who began this study while World War II was occurring, noted that Japan is a very alien culture to the West, and seems to be full of contradictions; the title symbolizes that the Japanese take joy in both cultivating chrysanthemums, a symbol of peace, and in practicing the sword, a symbol of war. As such, many Americans did not understand the Japanese they were fighting in the war, and this book is an effort to explain the Japanese culture, and its conflicting systems of virtues.This study is very in-depth and deals with cultural issues that would not be guessed at by casual observation of the Japanese. However, it has some problems. The first is that Benedict, as she writes herself as one of her limitations, was unable to study Japanese in Japan, because of the war. The second is that the book is now over 60 years old, and much of the information is out-of-date. It is, however, a fairly accurate description of prewar Japan and can be used to understand the background of modern Japanese values, though other sources should be investigated to learn about prewar Japan.
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