Bushido: The Soul of Japan is a study of the way of the samurai. A best-seller in its day, it was read by many influential foreigners, among them President Theodore Roosevelt, President John F. Kennedy and Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.Nitobe originally wrote Bushido: The Soul of Japan in English (1899), in Monterey, California. The book was first published in English in New York in 1899. It was subsequently translated into Japanese in 1908 by Sakurai Hikoichirō. Thereafter, Yanaihara Tadao’s translation became the standard text in Japanese which was published by Iwanami Shoten.As Japan underwent deep transformations of its traditional lifestyle and military while becoming a modern nation, and the result of his meditations was this seminal work. A fine stylist in English, he wrote many books in that language, which earned him a place among the best known Japanese writers of his age.He found in Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the sources of the seven virtues most admired by his people: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor and loyalty.