The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts
An amazing treasure-house of anecdotes, accountings, and historical musings on sword play across the generations and cultures. Its loose presentation style lends it to reading in frenetic bursts. I really enjoyed his commentary and analysis of fencing training and combat arts. One criticism is that he's not very strong on pre-Renaissance swordsmanship or history. But his pre-Renaissance discussion is just at the beginning of the book and that can be quickly skimmed -- the rest of the book is great.
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