By The Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

Written by Richard Cohen

Narrated by Richard Cohen

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781630157524

Richard Cohen

 Richard Cohen is the author of By the Sword, Chasing the Sun, and How to Write Like Tolstoy. The former publishing director of two leading London publishing houses, he has edited books that have won the Pulitzer, Booker, and Whitbread/Costa prizes, while twenty-one have been #1 bestsellers. He has written for most UK quality newspapers as well as for The New York Times Book Review and The Wall Street Journal, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Connect with him on Facebook @RichardCohenAuthor and Twitter @AboutRichard.     

Reviews for By The Sword

[ralphz-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Excellent subject but not as well done as I was hoping.

"By The Sword" promises more than it delivers. As another reviewer notes, the subtitle calls it "A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions," but it felt like the main part of the book was about fencing - the sport of the writer.

I had hoped to learn more about Samurai and other swordfighters, but instead learned an awful lot about Hungarian epeeists, among others.

I imagine this is a good intro and there's another book out there that'll be what I want. But this book? Worth the $2 I spent on it. Not much more.

More reviews at my WordPress site, Ralphsbooks.

[xenchu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To my recollection, there was no mention of gladiators in the book. Other than that it was a very good book on the creating and history of the sport of fencing. The history of dueling was fairly well cover and interesting but not the focus of the book. The book was full of interesting information and fun facts.Being the product of a major publisher, the book was well proofed and well edited. So of course there were no problems with spelling, grammar or bad writing, which I very much appreciate and usually like to mention in one way or another.I recommend the book to anyone interested in fencing and/or dueling. There is plenty to keep the reader's interest

[cdagulleiro · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Un libro extremadamente entretenido, que no necesita de conocimientos de esgrima superiores a los que podría necesitar "el maestro de esgrima", por ejemplo. Anécdotas de la Historia muy interesantes y, en general, es un libro para tener y releer de vez en cuando.

[jmcclain19 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The advertised storyline showcasing this book as the world history of sword fighting, is in reality, a detailed history of fencing thru. Not exactly what I expected and is the book is off the charts technical with fencing terms. As a non-fencing insider, it glazed my eyes over in just a few short pages. Wouldn't recommend except for someone strongly interested in fencing.