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"Not Angli sed Anglo"
Eagerly awaited by historic combat enhusiasts of all persuasions for the past two years, the pre-release buzz surrounding Anglo's The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe was characterized by expectant suspense on the one hand, and tacky name dropping and tail-wagging subservience on the other. Turns out both attitudes out not only were warranted but justified!
Sydney Anglo plunges the reader into a hidden world of combat activity whose presentation has no equal by virtue of its sheer scope and erudite analysis. Lavish illustrations taken from some of the most popular and some of the rarest fighting manuals of renaissance Europe combine with carefully documented and annotated critical commentary to produce a work unparalleled in the field.
The thorough academic approach, combined with Anglo's intelligent and at times humorous personal style, is providing a backbone of respectability and credibility to a subject matter that frequently does its darndest to self-implode any claims to being taken seriously by overvaluing the emotionally affirmative needs of some modern practitioners. And yet–and this is a strength of this book–Anglo manages to reconcile the two main currents evident in hiistorical fencing today... even those modern martialists whos so loudly proclaim anything not based in practical application to be of little to no value to the modern European Martial Arts aficionado.
This book begs to differ. Of course, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe is no How-to-Manual. There's no evidence that the dignified professor donned a puffy shirt and pranced around his backyard trying out the techniques represented in long-lost manuals. In fact, the book does not contain detailed analysis of individual techniques at all. Nor does it quite answer the question in which specific combative scenarios the arts summarized under the modern Anglo-American pop culture handle "Martial Arts" were applied. (This particular aspect of mainly legal and extra-legal history might make for a book in itself.)
But that's not the point.
Short on brawn and long on brains, Anglo introduces us to the very core of these arts... the masters themselves... the way they thought... the methods they (and their graphic artists) employed to transmit complex ideas and sophisticated systems of ethics, philosophy, and physical skill to students, patrons, readers, and of course to us.
What makes this book relevant not only to the enthusiast of medieval and renaissance arts, but to the entire Western martial arts community: Anglo foregoes the pat shoe-boxing usually associated with focus on a partiular period. His work doesn't leave the reader stranded in an era that is hermetically sealed off from the modern period:
While rightfully emphasizing the differences between modern sport and ancient art, Anglo provides tantalizing glimpses of continuities... manifest in the literary traditions of individual systems that track the influence of a particular work – through its reprints, translations and plagiarisms – from the Renaissance far into the modern period.
This is destined to be one of the most influential EMA books of the century!
Author: Anglo, Sydney
Title: The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe, Yale Univ Pr, 2000; Hardcover - 400 pages; ISBN: 0300083521; US$36 at amazon.com
Hammerterz rating: HHHH
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