About the Author

Born in 1963, J. Christoph Amberger grew up in what used to be West Berlin, Germany.

He studied Latin, English, history, dentistry, Gaelic, English and American Literature, journalism, philosophy, and economics with varying degrees of devotion and perseverance at the Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen before obtaining his Master of Arts at St. John's Graduate Institute in Annapolis, Maryland.

He has been living in the United States since 1989, is married and has three children.

A regular contributor to American Fencing, the magazine of the United States Fencing Association, and to the British fencing magazine The Sword, as well as the German Einst und Jetzt, he founded Hammerterz Forum in 1994. He has been featured in the Discovery Channel's 1997 documentary series Deadly Duels, has been a consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the exhibition The Academy of the Sword, and is considered one of the foremost experts on historical edged-weapons combat in the United States.

As a member of two of the most respected duelling fraternities in Germany, he fought seven Mensuren with the bell-guard and basket-hilt Schläger between 1985 and 1987 and acted as a second in 25 more. His weapon of choice on the sports fencing strip is the saber.

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