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Saigo Takamori's life's achievements and struggles to accept or deny western influences is a perfect vessel in which to display the reforms and their effects on a feudal society now modeling itself after western methods and technologies.

Saigo Takamori is deemed the last of the samurai class. His status is uplifted as a die hard warrior and hero among his people. He is renowned both in Japanese and Western cultures but especially in the south his homeland of Kagoshima the area in which he and his band of warriors made their historical last charge. The last battle is portrayed uniquely across both cultures. Takamori's upbringing was that of the lower class samurai under the Shimazu Nariakira daimyo of Satsuma. The former regime of Hideyoshi had introduced a firmly enforced caste system with the samurai at the top of the hierarchy followed by the farmers, craftsmen and lastly the merchant class. Hideyoshi's method of social classes (shi-no-ko-sho translates exactly this and did......

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Approximate Word Count: 692
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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