The Martial Arts: Origins, philosophy, practice.

If you're buying the paperback version of this book, your getting a book called 'The Martial Arts: Origins, philosophy, practice.'. It's a pretty good general overview of different martial arts, presented in the form of a glossary, or even a dictionary, with definitions and explanations given (as anything from a few sentences to a couple of paragraphs) for a range of terms and expressions from the Martial Arts world. Far from definitive, but that's fine; it doesn't claim to be. Just a nice book to dip into. I saw it at a friend's house and thought 'I must keep an eye out for a copy'.But I like my books hardback.So having found the book on Amazon, I saw there was also a hardback available in the 'other editions'. I clicked it, bought it, waited.When it came, what I got was a different beast altogether. The hardback is an illusrated guide to a few of the Arts. Still by Peter Lewis, but iIt's like a badly dated (think 80's) kid's annual about Kung Fu (the worst bit; the photos are of a long haired shirtless guy; looks like he's out of a hair-metal, video of the time, and a girl in a leotard & both of them in MC Hammer pants) Karate, Ninjitsu, TKD, and one or two others.While the information is all good, the models well posed, it just looks kind of awful, really. A bit embarrassing; I'm hiding it.It's the hardback I got so it's the hardback I'm reviewing. Two stars instead of one, because although I hate it, all that's wrong really is that it's soooooo dated.

excellent

Excellent

If you want to start a martial art but are unsure of which one is best for you, I recommend you read through this book. It gives a brief explanation of many of the worlds arts and as such lets you compare them and allows you to see what may best suit your beliefs and what you want to achieve from martial arts. You can then pursue further research based on this knowledge before embarking on a path of training. It is clear to read and immensely interesting.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

Interested in broadning your martial arts knowledge? Or in changing styles? This is the book for you. More than anything else I have read, this book details every major martial art and a few obscure ones to boot. For each the author focuses on history, philosophy and training methods/emphasis. The arts are presented with a minimum of the bias which is so often present when dealing with the subject, and the glossary will make the book as accessible to newcomers as it is to black belts.

This book provides superficial chatty coverage of many martials arts, and suffers from many faults. The structure is poor (covers arts by countries) as opposed to themes and flow of martial ideas through the ages and countries. It is pretty badly written/edited with many odd comments and turns of phrase. If you are genuinly interested in the martial arts I would look at more detailed and scholarly works available. If you just want to browse through several arts to perhaps decide which one to pursue, then I would refer you to wikipedia for better quality and more detail.