Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Book of the Sword: With 293 Illustrations by Richard Francis Burton

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thevampiremars's review

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informative slow-paced

3.0

Let’s not beat around the bush – this book is extraordinarily racist, even when its age is taken into consideration. Scientific racism, an obsession with the dichotomy of “civilisation” and “savagery,” casually referring to white people as “the worthier race” – barely a page goes by without incident.
An example: Burton really makes a point to remind the reader that Ancient Egypt was extremely advanced and served as a major influence on contemporaneous and subsequent cultures, but a hypocrisy emerges as he discusses its impact on European and African societies. Greece and Rome being inspired by Egypt is presented as an interesting tidbit. Meanwhile, when discussing “uncivilised African races” (he goes on to use some slurs I won’t repeat here) the author claims the only reason they have advanced metallurgy is because they “had the advantage of dwelling within importing and imitating distance of Egypt,” implying that North Africans aren’t intelligent or skilled in their own right, they just profit off other cultures’ achievements. This double standard demonstrates Burton’s unwavering conviction that Europeans are unquestionably superior – an attitude which permeates each and every chapter.

There are frequent tangents concerning metallurgy, mythology, and even animals – so many that I’d say, at a guess, maybe 15% of this book is actually about swords (and daggers, axes, polearms, etc). The fact that Chapter VII is called “The Sword: What is it?” goes to show how much preamble there is. Still, I did learn a considerable amount about the history and use of swords and other melee weapons when the author managed to stay on-topic.

This was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, serving as “an efficient introduction” before going on to explore the sword’s development and progression into its “Golden Age” (the sixteenth century) in Part II and its decline up until what was then the present day (late nineteenth century) in Part III. Honestly, Parts II and III, as outlined in this book’s introduction, sound far more interesting than this would-be Part I, but the rest of the trilogy wasn’t completed before Burton’s death in 1890. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment reading the closing phrase “Here begins the romance of the Sword.”

I was originally going to give The Book of the Sword two and a half stars, but Joseph Grego’s illustrations elevated it to three stars for me. To be honest, the cover art is what made my pick this book up in the first place.

There’s much more I could say but I think I’ll leave it here. This is a book let down by poor structuring and incessant bigotry, but I suppose it does have some historical value and could serve as a jumping off point for further research. It isn’t something I’d recommend, necessarily, but I don’t think reading it was a complete waste of time. 
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