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Roald Knutsen and Patricia Knutsen
ISBN 978-1-901903-56-0 - 288pp - B/W illus. - Case
September 2004 - £45.00
| KEY FEATURE(S): The first book in English to provide a fully illustrated guide to the development of spearmaking (naginata and yari) in Japan |
Of all the weapons of the Japanese samurai, the sword is best known and valued for its perfection of design and as a work of art; and yet, from the warrior’s perspective the more humble halberd or straight spear were the dominant weapons of the battlefield until displaced by the widespread introduction of firearms in the late sixteenth century. This fully illustrated study of naginata and yari, the only reference of its kind in English, records the many variations of spear design from the ancient period when warrior chieftains settled in Japan from the Asian mainland, down to the fall of the Tokugawa in 1868 that marked the close of the feudal period. In addition, it offers the reader valuable insight into the historical attitude of the Japanese warrior to warfare and examples of the use of these often splendid weapons in the bujutsu - the arts of the battlefield.
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