Samurai, but not as you know them: British Museum exhibition rewrites the warrior myth

Now, the British Museum would like to gently suggest that stereotypes might not be all that they seem. But obviously, any exhibition about the Samurai has to open with a warrior’s armour, even if it ends, maybe unexpectedly, with Darth Vader. Rather than treating the samurai as a fixed historical type, the exhibition shows them as a social class whose role and image shifted repeatedly. Their story is now being told through around 280 objects drawn from the British Museum and nearly 30 lenders worldwide. The exhibition, Samurai, is at the British Museum until 4th May 2026.