Customer Reviews

Karate's History and Traditions

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This book should be required reading for every martial arts student of all styles.
It's concise ,accurate (with plenty of names and dates)and even proper kanji to show the reader what certain words look like in Chinese.
An excellant referance when a point of history is in contention !

This book does an excellent overview job on the "big picture" of the growth and development of Karate, including how it has spread in the United States. Some of the statements about other martial arts reflect some small bias on the part of the author, but that is minor and understandable. The book serves to answer most basic questions a reader might have, like "Who first taught this-or-that", or "Where was the first school?" and things like that. I don't mean to imply that this book is basic, or superficial. The history is complete and detailed, and covers a large time period. Any dojo owner or teacher out there needs to read this book to intelligently answer questions raised by students and lay people.

Martial Arts content and education has changed so much over the last, say, fifteen years that this book serves as the model for other studies that need to be made. The book is readable without sacrificing accuracy or clarity, complete, coherent (i.e., it keeps its focus consistently), and logically arranged. Anyone that wants to publish work that amplifies or follows up this work would do well to study its composition. Thank goodness this history was compiled when it was, before so much could be lost or forgotten.

Martial Arts history is so intertwined with myth and legend, that its hard to separate true historical facts. This book does a good job of pointing out when parts of the traditional history are likely to be just fictional, yet also pays respect to a very eastern perspective; sometimes myth represents better the essence of the idea than a myriad of facts, which are by nature, disjoint and subjective.

A Clasic Text treasured by Martial Artist for over twenty years, Karate's History & Traditions was long recognized as the most authoritative source on martial arts history and technique. Now Bruce Haines, historian and martial artist, has updated this rich source to reflect changes that have taken place in the last two decades.