March 2022 Book Survey
Welcome to the March 2022 book survey. Introduction In March 2022, I (Richard) continued my reading plan that prioritized print books that have been on my shelf for months, or years. This post describes a mix of print and digital books I read in March. Read on to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Invention of Martial Arts, Paul Bowman, 2021 The Invention of Martial Arts is another fascinating work by the prodigious Dr Paul Bowman. Page 1 notes that it is "primarily concerned with media representation of martial arts," particularly in the United Kingdom. Page 8 continues the theme by saying the book is about "the invention of ideas about martial arts, not martial arts themselves." This is an important distinction that colors the entire argument. Page 10 reminds readers that our ideas about martial arts don't necessarily come from martial arts themselves. They are more likely to derive from media. This does leave me wondering if practitioners' views a...