Customer Reviews

The Sword and the Centuries (Greenhill Military Manuals)

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Yes, don't bother thinking about it - just buy this one. That is, if you're interrested in duels. I enjoyed this book a lot, as all of Hutton's works, although this one is not as "technical" as the rest of them. Rather a pleasant read, and probably the best collection of accounts of some historically important, or for various reasons colorful duels... By the way (and I suppose I'm stating the obvious here, considering Huttons's primary occupation), pistol-lovers - stay away! :-)

At more than a hundred years old, Alfred Hutton's "The Sword and the Centuries" is the best book on historical dueling yet to be published. As the title suggests, the book focuses on duels fought with swords, although there is some mention of axes, clubs, sticks, and other similar weapons being used (although no pistol duels). The author provides an exhaustive collection of historical duels, beginning in the late medieval period and ending with some of the author's own personal interviews.

If you are at all interested in fencing, sword-fighting, dueling, or history in general you will not regret reading this book.

I'm terribly ambivalent about this book. Hutton is a pillar of modern sport fencing. He is immensely important in the survival of the Art of the Sword. This particular book is a forensic collection of duels over the ages. These private little slaughters are reported with sang froid; a romantic relish for combat as theater and something to enjoy. ( In fact, sang froid means "cold blooded killer". A point that escapes the retelling. )

The human relationship to weapons of violence has always been dissonant. There is a reverence and aesthetic to the form and the power provided by the weapon: both as tool and as symbol. On the other hand there is a distaste for violence and its consequences. Thusly any book that romanticises or validates such actions suffers the contradiction.

Not so Hutton. As soldier and passionate swordsman he is immune to the contradiction. Happy in his convictions it was his romantic ilk that walked up to the massed machine guns of WWI to be mowed down.

In it's own way, this book is a compelling curiosity, not only for the vignettes of history it reports, but the very manner and ethos which Hutton sustains in his writings.