Amazon.com description: Product Description: In the mid-15th Century Japan began to face challenges it had never before experienced with such intensity. In the following hundred and fifty years, the so-called 'Age of Warriors' reached its brutal zenith - the imperial court was ignored, the shogun distracted and the population increasingly vociferous. It was the dawning of a nationwide era of families divided and neighbours at war, religious fervour and revolutionary undertones, craftsmen under arms and landlords threatened. In this portrait of a nation divided, Michael Lorimer surveys and explains the multiple trends and events that tore the fabric of state and the lives of people asunder. He then discusses the personalities and factions who brought this world under their sword; the smashing of rival hegemonies and the obliteration of obstructive forces, the destruction of local customs and the flourishing of arts and urban confidence; a time of pleasure, pain and paranoia.