The Book of the Sword

Sir Richard Francis Burton was never a man to do anything by halves, and his monumental history of the sword proves it. Here is a Victorian polymath tracing the "Queen of Weapons" from its origins as a sharpened stick through the bronze ages, the iron smeltries of Viking smithies, and into the gleaming rapiers of European dueling grounds. But this is far more than a technical catalogue. Burton understands the sword as civilization's mirror: for nearly every people, the blade embodied chivalry, symbolized justice, and represented the thin bright line between freedom and oppression. His prose moves with the confidence of a man who had actually held these weapons in distant lands, who had seen how different cultures knelt before their glinting symbolism. Nearly 300 line drawings bring the account vividly to life, documenting every variant from scimitar to cutlass, from foil to dirk. This is scholarship with an adventurer's soul, written by a man who had personally traversed the territories where these weapons held sway. Military historians, sword collectors, and anyone who dreams of a more gallant age will find this volume impossible to put down.