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Title: The Book of the Sword by Richard F. Burton ISBN: 0-486-25434-8 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 August, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Historical masterpiece - a wonderful ancient sword reference
Comment: This book is a highly detailed book on swords and other historical worldwide weapons of war. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, master of 29 languages, accomplished swordsman, soldier, and scholar, the man who penetrated the forbidden cities of Mecca, Medina, and Harar, and who helped introduce "The Arabian Nights" and "The Kama Sutra" to the western world. Burton was the stuff of legends, a man whose adventures and scholarly achievements have seldom been exceeded sets the stage for the introduction of swords through a review of how weapons developed and evolved into the fine weapons of the ancient britons and the romans. Unfortunately this was written as the first of a series of three books and leaves the reader hanging, the author died before completing volumes two and three - indeed a loss. If nothing else, research this author - you'll choke when you realize what else he has written!
Rating: 2
Summary: Too Much Detail
Comment: The book contained too much detail on manufacturing. I would have preferred the book to cover less ground. The review entitled "Words, words, words", encompasses my view exactly. Unfortunately I did not read all the reviews first. I will not make that mistake again.
Rating: 2
Summary: Words, words, words
Comment: Burton goes to great length to include every tedious detail imaginable, as he talks about early weapons, ancient peoples, metal ages, and early swords.
The first 50 pages give the history of weapons prior to the use of metal. The next 70 pages are dedicated to the various metal ages world-wide. Then 20 pages are given to a discussion of the basic types or styles of swords from the East to West. The last 140 pages deal with the sword as it appears among ancient peoples around the world up to the time of Rome.
This book is heavy on background information which includes sighting endless sources and scholars and peripheral issues. Burton frequently uses Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew and argues against some scholar or other over the meanings of words. It's like one huge annotated bibliography. For someone not interested in remote details it is painfully tedious. So much of the information is so obscure the average college grad without a very specialized interest would be hard pressed to find very much of it useful or interesting.
I shall conclude with a sample to demonstrate my point. The first several lines of Chp 7: The Sword: What is it? This sums up the whole book.
Having now reached the early Iron Age, which ends pre-hisotry annals, it is advisable to answer the question--'What is a Sword?' The word--a word which, strange to say, has no equivalent in French--is the Scandinavian Svard (Icel. Sverd); the Danish Svaerd; the Angleo-Saxon Sweord and Suerd; the Old German Svert, no Schwert, and the Old English and Scotch Swerd. The westward drift of Egyptian Sf, Sefi, Sayf, Sfet, and Emsetf, gave Europe its generic term for the weapon. The poetical is 'brand' or 'bronde,' from its brightness or burning; another name is 'laufi,' 'laf,' or 'glaive,' derived through French from the Latin gladius. Of especial modern forms there are the Espadon, the Flamberg, Flammberg, or Flamberge, the Stoccado, and the Braquemart; the Rapier and the Claymore, the Skeyne and Tuck...[you get the idea]
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Title: The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry by R. Ewart Oakeshott ISBN: 0486292886 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Secret History of the Sword by J. Christoph Amberger, J Christopher Amberger ISBN: 1892515040 Publisher: Unique Publications Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Knight and His Weapons by R. Ewart Oakeshott, Ewart Oakeshott ISBN: 0802312993 Publisher: Dufour Editions Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions by Richard Cohen ISBN: 0375504176 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 05 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Records of the Medieval Sword by Ewart Oakeshott ISBN: 0851155669 Publisher: Boydell Press Pub. Date: 25 July, 2004 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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