As Mitsuo Kure points out at the beginning of this excellent account of the samurai, "a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms," there is still considerable scholarly dispute over when the class emerged and precisely what it consisted of.

Though it "led" Japanese society for seven centuries, it is also true, as Kure notes, that "history is written by winners, and in Japan, as in Europe, the ruler often manipulated the record." Consequently, even contemporary documents ought to be assessed with some care, and Edo Period sources are simply not a reliable guide to the historical facts about the medieval age.

Thus, cautiously and occasionally skeptically, Kure leads us through history, following the spoor of this famous but little-understood military class. In so doing he is, of course, also giving us a political history of Japan, and for the beginner this is probably among the most profitable and least painful that we at present have.

Only occasionally do we recognize an unwarranted stance. The warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-89), for example, is called "heroic," a term as illegitimate as it is cliched. Mostly, however, the evaluation is fresh -- "the samurai of the Middle Ages still fought for property, lands and money, and only rarely for honor."

He tells us that the famous tales of heroic battles were mostly manipulated by historians in the later Edo Period -- or beyond. When daimyo Katsuyori Takeda attacked in the battle of Nagashino in 1575, "the repeated cavalry charges as depicted in Akira Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha' simply did not happen."

The Society of Jesus sailed into Japan on a wave of imported novelties (silk, wool, glassware, clocks, gunpowder), all articles welcomed by the daimyo who consequently allowed the Society to proselytize. In return, the European merchants bought slaves. This trade "was naturally something of a problem for the missionaries," writes Kure, "but they were never so serious about stopping it that they would endanger their local rights to preach the gospel."

This kind of opinion is rare in a Japanese academic text. More often a new work follows its predecessors more closely. But then, Kure is not an academic. A surgeon, he has as a hobby plastic modeling. He began an exhaustive research into the history and ways of the samurai in order to find needed details for samurai figure painting.

His subject is thus alive to him in a way often denied the academic who must balance his work against received opinion, the political climate and whatever stance his teacher had taken. Lack of academic training can lead to minor oddities, however. Kure uses the name Heishi in place of Heike throughout when referring to the great Heian Period family, legitimate but odd, and he calls Heike patriarch Taira no Kiyomori's daughter Tokusi.

At the same time, however, he is free to make important observations that would be impossible for a tenured professor. In speaking of bushido, he examines the famous "Hagakure" text that explains it as an idealization of dying, then adds "perhaps it might be more suitable to replace the final word with 'killing,' " adding that "we should not confuse the romantic illusion with reality: the medieval samurai was superstitious, irrational and held human life cheap."

Because of such fresh and personal observations, the samurai class spring from these pages with a vitality we are not used to in history books. The only parallel I can think of is Hiroaki Sato's very fine "Legends of the Samurai" (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 1995). Like Sato, Kure is not an academic, though he is certainly a scholar.

All of this is well illustrated with reproductions of period scrolls and paintings, with many color photographs of models wearing authentic armor, and with a number of line drawings, perhaps more amiable than distinguished, that are said to be authentic.

Various chapters in the history are interspersed with long descriptions of the armor and the weapons. There are also excursions into the role of women, and many sections given over to specific battles. Here we have the enthusiast (busy making plastic models), and his ebullience does indeed lend a living dimension to what he is writing about.

The volume is a lavish one, well designed and extremely colorful, with animated maps, diagrams showing how samurai put their underwear on and photos of 10 different ways to tie your helmet. Any museum mustiness is blown away by the enthusiasm -- a quality that will much refresh the reader.