Living by the Sword

Living by the Sword PDF Author: Kristen Brooke Neuschel
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501752138
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Sharpen your knowledge of swords with Kristen B. Neuschel as she takes you through a captivating 1,000 years of French and English history. Living by the Sword reveals that warrior culture, with the sword as its ultimate symbol, was deeply rooted in ritual long before the introduction of gunpowder weapons transformed the battlefield. Neuschel argues that objects have agency and that decoding their meaning involves seeing them in motion: bought, sold, exchanged, refurbished, written about, displayed, and used in ceremony. Drawing on evidence about swords (from wills, inventories, records of armories, and treasuries) in the possession of nobles and royalty, she explores the meanings people attached to them from the contexts in which they appeared. These environments included other prestige goods such as tapestries, jewels, and tableware—all used to construct and display status. Living by the Sword draws on an exciting diversity of sources from archaeology, military and social history, literature, and material culture studies to inspire students and educated lay readers (including collectors and reenactors) to stretch the boundaries of what they know as the "war and culture" genre.

Living by the Sword

Living by the Sword PDF Author: Kristen Brooke Neuschel
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501752138
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Sharpen your knowledge of swords with Kristen B. Neuschel as she takes you through a captivating 1,000 years of French and English history. Living by the Sword reveals that warrior culture, with the sword as its ultimate symbol, was deeply rooted in ritual long before the introduction of gunpowder weapons transformed the battlefield. Neuschel argues that objects have agency and that decoding their meaning involves seeing them in motion: bought, sold, exchanged, refurbished, written about, displayed, and used in ceremony. Drawing on evidence about swords (from wills, inventories, records of armories, and treasuries) in the possession of nobles and royalty, she explores the meanings people attached to them from the contexts in which they appeared. These environments included other prestige goods such as tapestries, jewels, and tableware—all used to construct and display status. Living by the Sword draws on an exciting diversity of sources from archaeology, military and social history, literature, and material culture studies to inspire students and educated lay readers (including collectors and reenactors) to stretch the boundaries of what they know as the "war and culture" genre.

The Sword

The Sword PDF Author: Lisa Deutscher
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783274271
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
A multidisciplinary overview of current research into the enduringly fascinating martial artefact which is the sword.

Blood and Steel

Blood and Steel PDF Author: Palmer Blackstock
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781089217589
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Death is a fickle thing. For most, it's a force of nature, but Agil Novan sees the reaper in a different light. As the greatest swordsman of all time, he cherishes life more than most, and he's lived one full of both struggle and success. After all of his accomplishments, he too must face the reaper and its scythe. When challenged, however, the swordsman is not one to go without a fight. After parrying it once and then impressing the reaper with a show of the blade, he is offered something more. A second chance at life--one that he's all but forced to accept. Now, stranded in an unfamiliar land with an unfamiliar body and far too many questions, Agil has his life threatened at every turn. Still, he is determined to survive. He knows what the reaper did to him. And he has never been one to let vengeance go unfulfilled.

The Sword and the Shield

The Sword and the Shield PDF Author: Peniel E. Joseph
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541617851
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders. To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights, the sword vs. the shield. The struggle for black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era they came to define.

The Book of the Sword

The Book of the Sword PDF Author: A.J. Lake
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408829959
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Snatched by a dragon at the end of book one, Edmund and Elspeth awake to find themselves soaring over the frozen wastes of the Snowlands, hundreds of miles from home. Escaping the dragon's clutches, they are discovered in the soft snow by Fritha. a charcoal burner's daughter. Edmund wants her help to arrange a passage home, but Elspeth has other ideas. The sword is speaking to her, filling her thoughts more and more. It's destiny is nearby, the purpose for which is was hewn, and where the sword goes, Elspeth must follow, increasingly under it's spell. Edmund and Fritha refuse to let Elspeth travel alone, and so they set out together on a perlilous route to Eigg Loki, the mountain which is drawing Elspeth and the sword, and to the dark secrets which lie at its heart.

By the Sword

By the Sword PDF Author: Richard Cohen
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 030743074X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
“Like swordplay itself, By the Sword is elegant, accurate, romantic, and full of brio—the definitive study, hugely readable, of man’s most deadly art.”—Simon Winchester With a new Preface by the author Napoleon fenced. So did Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Grace Kelly, and President Truman, who as a schoolboy would practice fencing with Bess—his future wife— when the two of them returned home from school. Lincoln was a canny dueler. Ignatius Loyola challenged a man to a duel for denying Christ’s divinity (and won). Less successful, but no less enthusiastic, was Mussolini, who would tell his wife he was “off to get spaghetti,” their code to avoid alarming the children. By the Sword is an epic history of sword fighting—a science, an art, and, for many, a religion that began at the dawn of civilization in ancient Egypt and has been an obsession for mankind ever since. With wit and insight, Richard Cohen gives us an engrossing history of the world via the sword. Praise for By the Sword “Touché! While scrupulous and informed about its subject, Richard Cohen’s book is about more than swordplay. It reads at times like an alternative social history of the West.”—Sebastian Faulks “In writing By the Sword, [Cohen] has shown that he is as skilled with the pen as he is with the sword.”—The New York Times “Irresistible . . . extraordinary . . . vivid and hugely enjoyable.”—The Economist “A virtual encyclopedia on the subject of sword fighting.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Literate, learned, and, beg pardon, razor-sharp . . . a pleasure for practitioners, and a rewarding entertainment for the armchair swashbuckler.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Forging the Sword

Forging the Sword PDF Author: Benjamin Jensen
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797382
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
As entrenched bureaucracies, military organizations might reasonably be expected to be especially resistant to reform and favor only limited, incremental adjustments. Yet, since 1945, the U.S. Army has rewritten its capstone doctrine manual, Operations, fourteen times. While some modifications have been incremental, collectively they reflect a significant evolution in how the Army approaches warfare—making the U.S. Army a crucial and unique case of a modern land power that is capable of change. So what accounts for this anomaly? What institutional processes have professional officers developed over time to escape bureaucracies' iron cage? Forging the Sword conducts a comparative historical process-tracing of doctrinal reform in the U.S. Army. The findings suggest that there are unaccounted-for institutional facilitators of change within military organizations. Thus, it argues that change in military organizations requires "incubators," designated subunits established outside the normal bureaucratic hierarchy, and "advocacy networks" championing new concepts. Incubators, ranging from special study groups to non-Title 10 war games and field exercises, provide a safe space for experimentation and the construction of new operational concepts. Advocacy networks then connect different constituents and inject them with concepts developed in incubators. This injection makes changes elites would have otherwise rejected a contagious narrative.

The Book and the Sword

The Book and the Sword PDF Author: Yong Jin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780190974282
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
"The Book and the Sword was Louis Cha's first novel, published in 1955. The story has a panoramic sweep which has at its heart a few unbeatable themes: secret societies, kung fu masters, and the sensational rumour so dear to Chinese hearts that the great Manchu Emperor Qian Long was not in fact a Manchu but a Han Chinese, a line of descent that came about as a result of a 'baby swap' on the part of the Chens of Haining in Southern China. It mixes in the exotic flavours of central Asia, a lost city in the desert guarded by wolf packs, and the Fragrant Princess. This lady is an embellishment of an actual historical figure - although whether she actually smelled of flowers, we will never know."--Jacket

The Sword of Bheleu

The Sword of Bheleu PDF Author: Lawrence Watt-Evans
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1587156253
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The sword that Garth had stolen from Dusarra marked him as the chosen of Bheleu, god of destruction, and gave him immense power. This power could only be used to destroy, and Garth wanted to build. He chose to refuse the god's gift. Bheleu did not intend to allow that.

The Sword

The Sword PDF Author: Jean Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780425220603
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Rescued into another universe by the youngest of eight mage-brothers, world-weary Kelly Doyle finds herself exiled on an island where women are forbidden and surrounded by four sets of twin brothers who are struggling to avoid a curse. Reprint.