Dr. Forgeng recently released his English translation of Joachim Meyer's groundbreaking German fencing treatise. The title of the book is The Art of Combat: A German Martial Arts Treatise of 1570, and if Amazon carried it, I'd have put up a book review in Books section of the site so you could purchase it through there. Alas, it isn't, so you'll have to purchase it from the publisher, Greenhill, here:

LINK

Let me start by saying that it doesn't matter if you actually practice historical martial arts or not. If you have any interest in the history of how martial arts were practiced, this book is wonderful. It is a beautiful work of art in it's own right, and it gives a window into the rich history of fencing as practiced in the 16th century, and one can see how it clearly holds its roots in the medieval tradition. I've always loved the plates from this text in particular, as they remind me of many of the Japanese Samurai paintings. :cool:

Bill;

How Cool! Thanks for the Heads Up. Gotta put that on on the Christmas List!

Cheers!

Gordon

Thx for the info!

*places order* :)

I've ordered mine through Greenhill, but Amazon now have it on the UK website.

LINK

Does that work for US orders as well?

I did a quick scan of the book and am now working my way through the first40 pages or so. The publication is very well done and the author lays out his quide lines for translating the book. That being said, I still have yet to find a way of conecting the text with the wood cuts so you can cross reference the text with the image. To me it seems the the editing of the book would have been better to include the text in its proper reference to the images. Not the greatist help in interpreting the material just yet.

If some one else has clicked on the way to refernece the proper text to the proper image let us know.

Cheers
Jim

Hi Jim,
To my knowledge that's how the original was as well. Basically, in the text, it will tell you if there's an illustration, and which illustration to reference. Yeah, I know it's a little frustrating flipping back and forth, but hey, I'm used to texts that either 1) have no illustrations, or 2) have plenty of illustrations with sparse text, so this one's a step up in that respect. :)

Okay then, I shall keep reading till I hit one of those references and highlite the thing.