Customer Reviews

Chinese Archery

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I have not only read through most of this book, but also met the author. He is someone who is quite the expert at practicing the archery in which this book discusses. I have found this book to be extremely thorough in both the history of archery in Asia, as well as the forms and exercises associated with it's practice. The level of research makes this a scholarly work but presented in a readable fashion full of pictures and diagrams where appropriate, translations of period references on almost every other page, and instruction on how to shoot a bow in the Chinese style as can only be told by someone with personal experience in addition to the translations of instruction from various texts.

A nice feature of this book is how archery in China is put into perspective across the large span of history and geography it covers. It is not an isolationist view of a single culture but rather it takes into account the styles of archery as well as the attitudes about it from the various cultures that were both influential to and influenced by China.

Overall I would say it is an intense, well rounded book and I highly recommend it.

In Chinese Archery, Stephen Selby draws upon his years of study and interest in Chinese language and culture, as well as an accomplished archer, to present a definitive history of traditional archery in China as related by historians, philosophers, poets, artists, novelists and strategists from 1500 B.C. down to the present day. Written around parallel text translations of classical Chinese sources (some famous, some obscure), the reader is provided vivid and detailed explanations of the techniques of bow-building, archery and crossbow technique over the centuries. Chinese Archery is unique, definitive, and a very impressive contribution to Chinese history, and the sport of archery.

I really really enjoyed this work. And after several months of practicing Chinese archery, I read through it a second time and gained an even deeper appreciation for the effort Stephen put into this book. He does a great job combining discussions on archery, culture, history, science and technology --- I learned a great deal, even beyond technique. My favorite parts are Chapters 11 and 12, where the translations do a great job of conveying the down-to-earth humor of some authors from the late Ming dynasty.

"Chinese Archery" by Stephen Selby is a book that iseasy to use. The author introduces the subject of each chapter, thenfollows with the original Chinese sources and his straightforward translations. He then discusses the texts and the ideas they present. Selby is careful to include references to variant interpretations, where the texts may be ambiguous or where there may be scholarly debate. Unless it is vitally important to reading a given section, most of this discussion is kept to footnotes. The book covers three thousand years of archery in China and discusses bows, arrows, crossbows, archers' rings, targets, and shooting technique. Selby includes some clear and relevant colour photographs at the beginning of the book and supplements them with black and white photographs in the body of the work. He also uses old woodblock prints, computer-generated drawings and diagrams to illustrate the translations. "Chinese Archery" is a good resource for the scholar and an interesting book for the nonspecialist. An extensive bibliography and the careful discussions of the translations are a positive advantage. Having the Chinese texts present makes this book more valuable than a translation only because the reader can check the original. With the discovery of new material, "Chinese Archery" will become a reference for identification and comparison. The bow-maker and the archer will benefit from the descriptions and instructions in this book. Readers, who are interested primarily in other forms of traditional and modern archery, will at last have an insight into what really was going on in Chinese archery over the last three thousand years. The general reader will see through the window of a particular activity the many ways in which a culture can approach dealing with its problems, including education and social relations.