The Libri GmbH The Onin War: How a Shogun's Succession Crisis Tore Kyoto Apart and Opened Japan's Sengoku Era

In the winter of 1467, a defeated lord set fire to his own home, led his men to a shrine in the heart of Kyoto, and waited for his enemies.
By nightfall the shrine was burning. Within months, so was the capital.
For ten years, Japan's greatest warrior houses fought street by street through the imperial city. Temples burned, mansions fell, and the shogun's orders for peace were ignored. No one could stop it.
Few people know that the Onin War grew from many quarrels at once: a shogun who named his brother heir and then fathered a son, great families split by rival claimants, and two lords who had once been allies. When both leaders died in 1473, the war kept going.
Inside, you will discover:
- How a succession crisis dragged a realm into war
- Why the shogun could not command his own lords
- The rise of the ashigaru foot soldiers
- The hidden truth behind the chronicle that shaped the legend
- How Kyoto's ruin spread its culture across Japan
What you're about to discover will change how you see the samurai age. This is the story of how the Sengoku era, Japan's Age of Warring States, was born, told as gripping narrative history grounded in the documented record. Its lessons about divided leadership and authority that no longer commands obedience feel strikingly timely.
Ideal for readers of Japanese history, samurai and Sengoku enthusiasts, students, and anyone fascinated by how great powers collapse from within.