Samurai to SoldierIn Samurai to Soldier, D. Colin Jaundrill rewrites the military history of nineteenth century Japan. In fifty years spanning the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji nation state, conscripts supplanted warriors as Japan's principal arms bearers. The most common version of this story suggests that the Meiji institution of compulsory military service was the foundation of Japan's efforts to save itself from the imperial ambitions