Books I Read in February & March
Yes, I only finished one book in the past two months. I've been busy, and sick. Cut me some slack.
By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions
Richard Cohen
This is basically a history of dueling and sport fencing, written by a champion fencer. It's main focus is on the renaissance Europe and modern Europe and America, although it touches briefly on earlier periods and feudal Japan. As the author states, it would be impossible to write a complete history of swordsmanship in a single book, but I think this work could have benefitted from some more discussion of gladiatorial combat and medieval judicial combat, the latter being all but completely ignored.
A large bulk of the book is taken up by anecdotes of famous and exceptional duels which, while often interesting, got repetitive after a while. Another minor fault of this work is that it uses a lot of fencing terminology without any explanation. I found myself lost a few times, not knowing quite what the author was talking about.
All in all, By The Sword is an enjoyable and informative book, but probably only of interest to serious sword geeks like me.
By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions
Richard Cohen
This is basically a history of dueling and sport fencing, written by a champion fencer. It's main focus is on the renaissance Europe and modern Europe and America, although it touches briefly on earlier periods and feudal Japan. As the author states, it would be impossible to write a complete history of swordsmanship in a single book, but I think this work could have benefitted from some more discussion of gladiatorial combat and medieval judicial combat, the latter being all but completely ignored.
A large bulk of the book is taken up by anecdotes of famous and exceptional duels which, while often interesting, got repetitive after a while. Another minor fault of this work is that it uses a lot of fencing terminology without any explanation. I found myself lost a few times, not knowing quite what the author was talking about.
All in all, By The Sword is an enjoyable and informative book, but probably only of interest to serious sword geeks like me.