Martial History Team

  Welcome to the June 2022 book survey, part two. I decided to break this month's survey into two posts, as I did last month. Introduction In June 2022, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post describes another 8 books that I read in June, all related to the 1970s Kung Fu TV series . Read on to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Spirit of Shaolin: A Kung Fu Philosophy, David Carradine, 1991/1998 I bought  Spirit of Shaolin: A Kung Fu Philosophy  in the 1990s when I was studying kung fu and watching the original series in syndication on the TNT network. This book is split into three parts. The first is an autobiography of sorts, from the Kung Fu TV show through the first Kung Fu TV pilot movie. The second presents itself as philosophy and ancient wisdom, but it is filled with the false Shaolin creation myths debunked in many solid books published in the last few years. The third part contains "lessons," and is followed by an appendix.  The appendix feat...

   Welcome to the June 2022 book survey, part one. I decided to break this month's survey into two posts, as I did last month. Introduction In June 2022, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post describes 8 books that I read in June. A subsequent post will address the other 8 that I surveyed last month. Read on to separate the wheat from the chaff.  British Sword Fighting 1600-1945, D. A. Kingsley, 2018 I bought British Sword Fighting 1600-1945 in December 2020. My copy is a black and white hardcover measuring 9 1/4 inches by 6 1/4 inches by 2 1/8 inches, with 740 pages. The latest edition is called Swordsmen of the British Empire 1600-1945 and was published in 2021. The version sold on Amazon appears to be a 2013 publication. This blog post influenced my original buying decision, as it tried to make sense of the many versions of this title.  This is an unusual book. It is self-published through Lulu and is mostly text. There are illustrations, but they ar...

 Welcome to the May 2022 book survey, part two. I decided to break this month's survey into two posts, so here is the second segment. Introduction In May 2022, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post describes 8 more books that I read in May. My last post addressed the other 8 that I surveyed last month. Read on to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Martial Arts of the Orient, Peter Lewis, 1985/1992/1993 I bought Martial Arts of the Orient in the 1990s. Back then, if I saw a book on martial arts at Barnes and Noble, I usually bought it. This title is a color hardcover measuring 11 3/4 inches by 9 1/4 inches. It includes chapters on karate, kung fu, aikido/judo/jiujitsu (not the Brazilian kind), taekwondo, other Japanese martial arts, "Siam," and weapons.  Like many of the books in this survey, it offers great pictures and dubious content. This book for some reason pushes the narrative that martial arts spread to the US because of the Korean War, not World War ...

 Welcome to the May 2022 book survey, part one. I decided to break this month's survey into two posts. Introduction In May 2022, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post describes 8 books that I read in May. A subsequent post will address the other 8 that I surveyed last month. Read on to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Academic Approaches to Martial Arts, edited by Michael DeMarco, 2017 Journal of Martial Arts editor Michael DeMarco donated a print copy of  Academic Approaches to Martial Arts for review. Thank you!  This book is a collection of articles published in the journal, from 1992 to 2019, but mostly from 1992-2002; 12 date from that period, with only 1 from 2011 and 1 from 2019. This results in the articles skewing toward the "dark period" of martial arts studies, where poor sources and less than stellar research prevailed.  Frequent citations of early scholars like Mr. Draeger are signs you are reading something from this disappointing pe...