Is there any authorative information on the history of the Ninja in print?

Question

I'm just interested... according to Wikipedia, the secretive nature of the Ninja meant that there are hardly any facts known about them, but if anyone has any leads, that would be cool.

Answer 1

You can run down the links. I started here:
http://www.bujinkan.co.za/H1.html

And here's a booklist:

The Grandmaster's Book of Ninja Training by Masaaki Hatsumi
Essence of Ninjutsu by Masaaki Hatsumi
Secrets from the Ninja Grandmaster : Revised and Updated Edition by Stephen K. Hayes
Ninjutsu: History and Tradition by Masaaki Hatsumi
Ninja: Warrior Path of Togakure (Ninja) by Stephen K. Hayes

As to whether or not these are authoratative works or not, will have to be up to your judgement. On the net, there are a variety of versions of how this history went, but most have in common that whether or not it was a group of priests, or a group of peasants, or a group of disgruntled samurai, they had a problem with the samurai based feudal political system of Japan at the time. And developed their techniques to fight against it.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't know but from a previous podcast I heard (look up Military History Podcast on iTunes), the brief history of ninjas was addressed.

Ninjas were the world's first SPECIAL OPS, if you will. They were also spies, dressing as everyday people, rather than the black outfit worn by ninjas in film. They had a variety of weaponry to ward off enemies and kill those that they were hired to kill.

Try Google or wikipedia or even Amazon for good resources on Japan's ninjas.