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Title: By the Sword : A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and OlympicChampions by Richard Cohen ISBN: 0-375-50417-6 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 05 November, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.86 (21 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A delightful romp through blade history!
Comment: This book is just a wonderful read! I realize that other reviewers have taken exception to parts of the work, but speaking as a stage combat practitioner and just a swashbuckling fool, it was a treat! This is among the most accesible books on the sword I have ever read, and the author is to be commended for the scope of the work, as well as the clear understandable way it is written. So if you love swords, Dumas, duels and derring-do, get a copy, you will love it!
Rating: 5
Summary: richard cohen replies
Comment: This is in response to two recent (summer 2003) reviews, one from an anonymous reader in New York, the other from Mr Henning Osterberg from Stockholm.
The anonymous reviewer is right to question my titling of Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy. I took the details from David Shipman's authoritiative history, THE STORY OF CINEMA. His date - 1964 - may be the release date for the trilogy in the U.S. As for Yukio Mishima being called a Nobel laureate, I am again at fault, although the Internet biography of the author calls him 'the first Japanese novelist to win a Nobel Prize'. He didn't; but whether this is properly a 'major blunder' on my part is a matter of opinion: Mishima was nominated for the Nobel on three separate occasions.
On a subject that ranges over 3000 years and covers virtually the whole world I knew that I would make errors. Many of these have been corrected in the paperback edition of the book, published last week by Modern Library. As it was, I had at least two experts in the subject concerned - sometimes more - read each chapter, as well as the checking done by Rndom House edeitors and proofreaders. Even so, Mr Osterverg is right about the literal on p. 72: the date should indeed be 1635. I would disagree with him about the importance I give to the Coup de Jarnac. I say that the French king never authorized another trial by battle; but as for the next three hundred years and more dueling weas a favourite French activity I do not see Jarnac as a pivotal figure in the history of swordplay. On the other hand, I do descibe in detail why such figures as Napoleon and Ignatius Loyola deserve mention, and I believe that Helen Mayer, as most probably the best woman fencer ever and arguably someone who could have altered the course of world history in 1935, is well worth a chapter to herself.
Mr Osterberg, himself a fine epee referee, ends his review by questioning my saying that any faults in my book are due to 'the referee'. This was meant humorously (sabreurs regularly blame referees for everything). Of course any errors in the book are my responsibility. But then foilists and sabreurs have long harbored doubts about the sense of humor of epeeists. Are we wrong?
Rating: 3
Summary: A bit to much to chew... for author and reader alike
Comment: This is a well written book and an impressive work. I quite like it, yet there are things that annoy me and which pulls down my overall appreciation of it
Being a sport fencer since the age of 13 myself, I share Mr Cohen's lifelong love of the sport. I have taken part in international fencing (epée though) and have met (and fenced) many of the persons mentioned in the text. My own fencing master, Bela Rerrich, is being mentioned (p. 403) as well as my ideal as a fencer and boyhood hero Hans Jacobsson. I also have a strong interest in general history as well as fencing history. Of course my background and my insight into fencing gives me another perspective than that of an ordinary reader when I review the book.
My first impression is that Mr Cohen has tried to cover everything about fencing. Such an ambition of course means that the author has to handle parts of the subject where he is not an expert. It also takes its toll of the reader. Sometimes I think the text loses focus and find myself turning a few pages ahead, to see when the chapter ends and what comes next. It is as if Mr Cohen is too much in love with the subject to let go of any part of it. Even though himself a publishing director, I think he would have benefited from the eyes of a critical editor who could have cut down the total text with at least one fourth.
The weakest parts are in the beginning of the book where the history of fencing is described. As example: one, in the history fencing, very important incident is the duel called the "Coup de Jarnac" in 1547, after which French kings never again granted duellists a field for fighting a duel and thus forced duelling to be an all illegal act. This also of course had implications on fencing and how it was being regarded. Rarely in history we can point at an individual event and say: - Here is a turning point, here history actually changed direction. I think Mr Cohen totally fails to recognise the importance of this incident. In his chapter "The Perfect Thrust" he reduces the "Coup de Jarnac" merely to be an example of a secret touch successfully carried out.
Another turning point in the history of fencing was when French fencing masters started to teach parry-riposte in two different movements instead of one. Here I think Mr Cohen is poor both in checking his sources as well as in proof-reading. On page 72 Mr Cohen claims that the master Le Perché de Coudray in 1605 codified a new way to hold the weapon thus allowing a new way of fencing. If the text had been proof-read properly the year would have been 1635, as he correctly states on page 83. Had he checked the sources better though, he would have discovered that the 1635 work of Le Perché is a very illusive piece of paper. Egerton Castle refers to it but puts a '?' behind it in his listing of fencing books. The fencing bibliographers Vigeant (1882) and Thimm (1896) don't mention it. The Italian Gelli (1895) writes that this work can not be located and that Castle only is referring to a "traité", still Gelli thinks that Castle was too meticulous to have made a mistake but choose himself not to include it in his listings. Where and how Castle found it and got to know about it is, as far as I know, still a mystery. Instead we rely on a 1676 version of Le Perche's work. This might seem a trifle but +/-70 years of course makes a lot of difference for a reader expecting accuracy, especially since Mr Cohen jumps forward and backward in the centuries, namedropping celebrities without really telling us why. Before the eyes of the reader comes Mozart, Ignatius Loyola, Napoleon, etc all with some connection, however trivial, to swords.
Moving into the 19th and 20th centuries I find Mr Cohen more on point. I can not comment on the subjects of Japanese fencing, movie fencing, sword swallowing or many of the other areas Mr Cohen moves into, but overall I think the text is much more focused and interesting from here on. I am fascinated with the accounts of nazi-fencing and the story of Helen Mayer. (A little surprised that the author found it worth to include a full chapter on her, when his main source is a biography published in 2002, apparently though he was already working on the story).
In the end the author deals with issues very close in time and only of interest to the fencing establishment. For future readers these things soon will appear as out of date. This unnecessarily dates the book which, if you can let yourself be swept away by the story and the magnitude of information and disregard the errors, will be of great interest to many in- and outside of fencing for many years to come.
In his final acknowledgements Mr Cohen admits there might be mistakes and shortcomings in the text but says that this, "as any past fencer will recognise is the fault of the referee". As a sabre fencer Mr Cohen might be able to make such a statement, myself an epée fencer and an international referee, would not grant me the same permission.
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Title: The Secret History of the Sword by J. Christoph Amberger, J Christopher Amberger ISBN: 1892515040 Publisher: Unique Publications/CFW Enterprises Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Art and Science of Fencing by Nick Evangelista ISBN: 1570280754 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 11 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Inner Game of Fencing: Excellence in Form, Technique, Strategy and Spirit. by Nick Evangelista ISBN: 1570282307 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Book of the Sword by Sir Richard F. Burton ISBN: 0486254348 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 July, 1987 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Old Sword-Play by Alfred Hutton ISBN: 0486419517 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 04 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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