The Samurai Archives

Where It Came From

Starting in 1999, the Samurai Archives Japanese history page was developed by C.E.West and F.W.Seal. R. Noelle, a friend of West's, was trying his hand at running a web server over his cable internet connection from his apartment, and offered to host a website. West, remembering the utter lack of useful internet sources on Japanese history during his thesis on Oda Nobunaga in 1997, thought that a Japanese history website would be a neat idea. At the time, Seal was more interested in WWII history, and declined for a time, but eventually came around.

The website itself was not planned out per se - the unconscious intent was to just keep putting up information until there was just so much there, it would meld into a cohesive whole. That never really happened, and it eventually became more of a "Sengoku History" page, rather than an all encompassing Japanese history page.