Customer Reviews

Gentlemen's Blood: A Thousand Years of Sword and Pistol

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

 

 

There's a lot to like about this enjoyable, lighthearted romp through centuries of dueling. It was a revelation to me that dueling was such an integral part of (male) western society over the last 500 years. You will shake your head at the absurdity, tragedy, and occasional glimmers of commonsense that permeate personal combat over the centuries. Barbara Holland's style is breezy and ironic. Some great moments-duelists battling it out in balloons-and interesting close encounters with dueling by such figures as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain, Occasionally style trumps content, and there are a few passages that show signs of hastiness or sloppiness, but this is a minor defect.

PS: Teen and preteen boys will love it!

I find myself wondering if were dueling still legal whether someone would challenge the author for casting aspersions on the practice.

All jokes aside, "Gentlemen's Blood" is a witty and engaging look at a social custom that seems incomprehensible in the late 21st century. Reading it, I could only think of how many stupid things are done in the name of honor and manhood.

I disagree with the negative comments about this book. I don't think the author is a "hack," and I don't think that she spares the readers descriptions about how unpleasant it is to get stabbed or shot. Pushkin's death from being gut shot in his last duel is a particularly vivid image that she describes.

I also think that people should not read it expecting a deep discussion about swordplay and gunslinging. The book is meant to be amusing and informative, and it certainly is.

The only criticism that I have against "Gentlemen's Blood" is that the author's thesis that modern day warfare is just dueling writ large is idiotic. In the past, some wars --particularly those of absolute rulers-- had features of duels, however, I would submit that an event like World War II or Vietnam is nothing like a duel.

Barbara Holland has a winning way of bringing historical figures vividly to life. For instance, our illustrious presidents are all too human in "Hail to the Chiefs," her delightful romp through American history (updated to include George W. and reissued by The Permanent Press, 2003). In Holland's "Brief Heroes and Histories"--many gathered from biographical sketches previously published in "Smithsonian" magazine--figures from Cleopatra to Elvis to Marx are re-examined with a fresh and funny perspective (Akadine Press, 1998). "They Went Whistling" (Random House, 2001) is closer in structure to "Gentlemen's Blood," in that the most interesting people and stories have been carefully sifted by Holland and served up with flair for our amused edification--in "Whistling," women who flout the conventions of their times and have Adventures, and in "Gentlemen's Blood," duels and those who fight them. I highly recommend Holland's latest work. Aficionados of guns and such equipment may be disappointed, as this is a history of duels, not an encyclopedia of weaponry. And anyone whose research methods and subsequent writing can withstand the scrutiny of the "Smithsonian" editorial board is no slouch. Enjoy the book!

Received Ms. Holland's book as a Christmas gift and read in one sitting. She provides an excellent narrative overview of her subject---and her coverage of dueling in early Western law and the period of the Founding Fathers were excellent. She provides ample context for her subject's treatment with prose that kept me engaged. Ms. Holland asks rhetorically toward the conclusion if the systems we've implemented to replace dueling are as a effective---one gets the real sense the answer is "no." Excellent and entertaining read; highly recommended.

This book is nothing more than a cut -and-paste job based on the familiar accounts of duels with a few sneering comments thrown in to demonstrate the author's cleverness.

The discerning reader with quickly recognize that the author is ignorant of the most basic techincal knowledge concerning the weapons she discusses. Clearly the author has not bothered to seriously research her subject--the certain mark of a journalist hack job.

I read Barbara Holland's description of dueling in Germany with dismay. Not one wit of the practices, purposes, procedures, social functions, legal sanctions, political position or technical aspects of German dueling she describes bear any resemblance to the facts of twentieth century German experience. As the first American after the Second World War to be admitted into a German student dueling fraternity and having fought duels myself, I can say authoritatively that the barbaric, illegal, pointless and grotesque activities described in her chapter "The German Version" bear no relationship to reality of German dueling over the last century. I'm not talking about missing the mark on a couple of points. I'm talking wholesale wrong, too wild to even try to summarize. If the German material is in anyway representative of the level of research in the remainder of the book, it is not worth the paper it is printed on. Titillating though they might be, the book's subjects of which I have first-hand knowledge are no more than inexplicable fantasy.

This is a facinating subject, but Holland turns it into an incredibly boring read. While her book has some interesting historical information, one has to read through lenghty and unentertaining anecdotes to get them. Her literary style tends to be sophmoric and unpolished. Perhaps most annoying, her political bent often comes through in her writing, and it can be insulting. This is a book that I could not even bring myself to finish reading, and I cannot recommend it.