By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

by Richard Cohen and Richard A. Cohen

Book Overview

Napoleon fenced. So did Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Grace Kelly, and President Truman, who would cross swords with Bess after school. Lincoln was a canny dueler. Ignatius Loyola challenged a man to a duel... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375504176
• ISBN13: 9780375504174
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 519 Pages
• Weight: 1.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Difficult to put down

Because I'm not a historian but rather someone with an interest for the sport of fencing, I can't speak for the accuracy of the details within the pages of the book. As the author has openly admitted here, there were corrections to be made and he has done them. I applaud his honesty in acknowledging those errors and making the corrections. That said, I personally have found myself completely engrossed and entertained by both the historic aspects and the non-handbook approach to the sport. While providing technical and historic details, it is done such in a way that the reader doesn't feel like he's in a lecture. I normally find 'history lessons' both dry and cumbersome but the tone of this book is wonderful done and richly expressed. It's apparent early on how much the author loves the sport and that passion is conveyed through his words. I don't recall when the last time I've been this excited reading a history book was. :) I am roughly three-quarters of the way through and have already recommended this to several of my friends who are likewise interested in the sport.

I did NOT know that.

This is the coolest book I've ever read about anything so technical. It really is a technical book but it is absolutely absorbing. I could have read at least 5 more chapters. I started out by checking it out of my local library and after having it out forever I bought my own. It's full of tidbits about modern fencing and sword craftsmanship (I would love to go to Bavaria and be a sword maker now) to the craziest stories from history that are true! Once you start reading you can't stop!

Beware the pedants - they are often wrong

I am the author's wife and I'm posting his review below... Beware the pedants - they are often wrong It is some time since I looked at the reviews of my book, and I am very grateful for the appreciative ones. However, there seems to be a feeling that the book is littered with errors. Not so. In so long a text,over 500 pages, a few were bound to creep in, but so far I have had to correct less than a dozen, all of them minor - and that includes errors pointed out to me in letters I have received from medieval historians and other specialists.A revised edition in the summer of 2008 will bring the whole story of fencing up to date, and have every error I have been informed about corrected. One continuing charge is that I overrate Errol Flynn as a fencer and underrate Tyrone Power. Well, here I stick to my guns (or foils). My own coach, the supreme Hollywood swordmaster Bob Anderson (as detailed in the book), trained Flynn, and though Flynn was no great technician he was such a gifted sportsman (tennis champion, Olympic boxing try-out, you name it) that his fencing was remarkably convincing. Power, on the other hand, was overweight when making his so-called great Zorro film; in the key scene, he is often unbalanced, ill-coordinated and flat-footed. I say this not as someone out to 'get' Power, but simply as an international fencer of many years who knows sloppy fencing when he sees it. As for Basil Rathbone, he was much better, but still no more than an adequate club fencer - as many contemporaries attest. If someone tells you differently just don't believe them. - Richard Cohen

richard cohen replies

This is in response to two recent (summer 2003) reviews, one from an anonymous reader in New York, the other from Mr Henning Osterberg from Stockholm.The anonymous reviewer is right to question my titling of Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy. I took the details from David Shipman's authoritiative history, THE STORY OF CINEMA. His date - 1964 - may be the release date for the trilogy in the U.S. As for Yukio Mishima being called a Nobel laureate, I am again at fault, although the Internet biography of the author calls him 'the first Japanese novelist to win a Nobel Prize'. He didn't; but whether this is properly a 'major blunder' on my part is a matter of opinion: Mishima was nominated for the Nobel on three separate occasions.On a subject that ranges over 3000 years and covers virtually the whole world I knew that I would make errors. Many of these have been corrected in the paperback edition of the book, published last week by Modern Library. As it was, I had at least two experts in the subject concerned - sometimes more - read each chapter, as well as the checking done by Rndom House edeitors and proofreaders. Even so, Mr Osterverg is right about the literal on p. 72: the date should indeed be 1635. I would disagree with him about the importance I give to the Coup de Jarnac. I say that the French king never authorized another trial by battle; but as for the next three hundred years and more dueling weas a favourite French activity I do not see Jarnac as a pivotal figure in the history of swordplay. On the other hand, I do descibe in detail why such figures as Napoleon and Ignatius Loyola deserve mention, and I believe that Helen Mayer, as most probably the best woman fencer ever and arguably someone who could have altered the course of world history in 1935, is well worth a chapter to herself. Mr Osterberg, himself a fine epee referee, ends his review by questioning my saying that any faults in my book are due to 'the referee'. This was meant humorously (sabreurs regularly blame referees for everything). Of course any errors in the book are my responsibility. But then foilists and sabreurs have long harbored doubts about the sense of humor of epeeists. Are we wrong?

To Know and Love the Sport

Someone once said "to win the game is great, to play the game is greater and to love the game is greatest." In Richard Cohen's book "By the Sword" it is clear that the author truly loves the game. If you have been a fencer or are yet a fencer you to will love this wonderful book. If you are not or never have been a fencer you will learn about the history of fencing, the excitement of fencing and even some of the problems that the sport is struggling to overcome after thousands of years. It was and is a martial art often engaged in for life and death in the past to now an Olympic sport for what often seems like life and death in competition on the fencing strip..As an American I have often felt badly that there was little reference material available to an American participant or lover of this ancient sport, as it modernizes through technology, to become more fascinating and TV watchable to the average sport fan. This book changes much of that chasm of knowledge.Cohen, an Olympic fencer, understands the skills required, the spirit needed and the inner glow and satisfaction that fencing can bring to you. As a history of the sword and its uses during the centuries this is a must read. For an individual interested in the sport of fencing it is an inspiration. En garde!!