Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of the Sword

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book contains a voluminous amount of interesting information on sword history and fencing. Unfortunately, it is also teeming rather horrendously with misconceptions, familiar myths, historical inaccuracies, and pure fiction. The author only used the barest references as his sources, some terribly outdated to the 1920's! He even omitted the major recent works of world experts and it really shows. The author is to be commended for his efforts, but his one-man show missed a tremendous amount of fundamental material on the attributes of sword types and wasted effort on frivolous entries.

Throughout, the author's point of view is exclusively that of a modern instructor of sport fencing who is enthralled not with our martial heritage but with choreographed Hollywood swordplay. His inexperience with medieval fighting manuals and with medieval swords in general shows clearly. In this way it distorts much of what would be useful to today's sword enthusiasts and students of historical medieval & renaissance swordsmanship. The amount of irrelevant material included is matched only by the amount of relevant material that was left out, especially on medieval German and Italian sources, and renaissance English ones. The work excludes several major categories of European sword forms and blade types while seeming to come up with altogether new ones. The material on 19th century German swords and Mensur are full of holes and errors. Also, the entries on Japanese swords and swords arts (as well as those on Chinese) are erroneous and insulting in their simplistic.

Only those who have never before encountered or studied anything substantial on the history of swords and fencing will be impressed with this book or fail to notice its serious and glaring discrepancies. It's certainly worth pursuing, but if you can afford to get the book, do so just to serve as a bad example of limited, biased research. Otherwise, serious students of the sword would be far better off to start their own library of primary! sources rather than paying $75 for this.

I can't begin to say how happy I am I got this book through inter-library loan, rather than wasting my money on a very expensive paperweight. In his self-review, Evangelista discusses how he realized he had "so much information in his head," he needed to get it down. Obviously, that is where most of this information comes from -- his head. That and a collection of outdated misconceptions that have been foisted on readers by sport fencing enthusiasts for the last hundred and fifty years.

Evangelista obviously is a sportfencer and has only dabbled in using real swords, rapiers, etc., in theatrical combat -- which is itself derived from sport fencing, not historical martial arts. His complete lack of reference to the litterally hundreds of existing 15th - 18th century fighting manuals, to the work of current scholars, and his 1920s-esque delusion that swordsmanship was a progressive evolution (not devolution) with the development of the smallsword, epee, and foil is almost embarrassing. These attitudes also exemplify why western martial arts are virtually extinct.

Evangelista's skills as a writer are quite good, and I suppose for the absolute novice this might not be a bad work, serving as a collection of traditional secondary and tertiary sources, but my advice would be to put that money towards a variety of other works.

Greg Mele, Wheaton, IL

This is a great book for everybody with even a passing interrest in swords or fencing. It covers a lot of the colorfull history of swords, ranging from the ancient swords used in the Troyan war to fencing in the Olympics today.
"The Encyclopedia of the Sword" is more then just an other quick reference of fencing or antique swords. When you read it you'll get an idea how fencing evolved from warfare to an art, science and sport.
Evangelista describes much more as merely fact about sword-types, fencers, techniques and fencing-schools, he also manages to include a lot of anacdotes about duels and Maitres. Undoubtely inspired by Evangelista's own maitre he also includes a lot of information about the sword in fiction: literature, theatre and movies.

Everybody who buys this book must however bear in mind that it wasn't written as a manual on fencing, kendo or any other form of swordsplay, nor as a elaborate book for collectors of swords. You don't have to fence to read this book but by reading it you certainly won't learn HOW to fence.

Personaly I thought the book had one minor drawback: the information about famous contemporary fencers focuses almost entirely on Amarican fencers, not a word about the reigning European champions from France, Germany or eastern Europe.

This book contains a voluminous amount of interesting information on sword history and fencing. It is also teeming rather horrendously with misconceptions, familiar myths, historical inaccuracies, and pure fiction. The author only used the barest references as his sources, some terribly outdated to the 1920's! He even omitted the major recent works of world experts and it really shows.

Throughout, the author's point of view is exclusively that of a modern instructor of sport fencing who is enthralled with choreographed Hollywood swordplay. His inexperience with medieval fighting manuals and with medieval swords in general shows clearly. In this way it distorts much of what would be useful to today's sword enthusiasts and students of historical medieval & renaissance swordsmanship. The amount of irrelevant material included is matched only by the amount of relevant material that was left out, especially on medieval German and Italian sources, and renaissance English ones. The work excludes several major categories of European sword forms and blade types while seeming to come up with altogether new ones. Also, the entries on Japanese swords and swords arts (as well as those on Chinese) are erroneous and insultingly simplistic.

If you can afford to, get the book just to serve as a bad example of biased research. Otherwise, you'd be a lot better off to start your own library of primary sources rather than paying $75 for this.

John Clements Author, Swordsman HACA Director Houston

I returned this book, after browsing through it for about an hour. For $80, I expected an excellent work of scholarship, filled with good illustrations, descriptions and analyses of various weapons, schools and styles, etc. Instead, this book is a thin rehash of existing scholarship, with a few, weak illustrations and very little insight into anything having to do with the sword. There is very little description of technique of Western sport fencing, much less of more esoteric or historical styles. The section on saber fencing is appalling. Weapons are catalogued, but there are few illustrations, none in color, and no discussion of how the design of a particular weapon determined the style of fencing associated with it

Very useful to Society for Creative Anachronism members. It will help give you background on the medieval history of sword fighting, and the associated cultural baggage. Also useful in that it has good coverage of Asian, especially Japanese, sword culture. In case you have a persona with a samurai background, say.

Granted, it does not tell you how to perform medieval sword fighting, per se. But the contextual information helps flesh out your understanding and persona.

If you think all encyclopedias are for reference only, think again. Nick Evangelista's "The Encyclopedia of the Sword" is a fascinating read from beginning to end, which is not how one normally reads an encyclopedia. Once you start reading this one, you simply cannot put it down.

It is full of useful and interesting information, to be sure, but it is also full of amusing anecdotes on everything from old fencing masters to actors who try to fence in movies. There is fencing terminology galore in your choice of languages and a multitude of definitions and descriptions of all manner of swords from all over the world -- and so much more.

Oh, yes. You can also use the encyclopedia as a reference book.

"The Encyclopedia of the Sword" should be in everyone's library.

This is certainly one of the most comprehensive books I've ever seen on the topic of fencing. To try to write a book encompassing all things of the sword is a close to an impossible feat, however, this one is as close as you'll ever get. This is not a dusty volume only suited for the most advanced fencers but rather a volume intended to share the wonders of the sword to a general audience. If you have any interest at all in art of fencing or swords in general, I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!

A reference book that covers so many topics, it goes well beyond the usual "sword" books. It is also fun to just read

One of my very favorite books on swords and fencing