Weapons of Warriors is a photographic study containing many of the most renowned, prestigious, and historical Arabic and Turkish swords from the 12th through the 19th century. Every sword is professionally studio photographed in the highest resolution and corrected color. Each weapon is presented in multiple angles, many in life size across two pages to provide the reader with the most detailed appreciation of the skill, craftsmanship, and artistry involved in the hand crafting of these famous Shamshirs, Kilics, Nimchas, Yatagans, and Saifs. The Askeri Military Museum of Istanbul, Turkey, has set a new standard in international art and cultural exchange by opening its entire collection to the authors. The museum staff provided every assistance to be certain that their most magnificent and important weapons were photographed for this study. The museum director of edged weapons even took the time to pen an essay (included herein) on the Turkish Yatagan. Working with the authors is an international team of writers from Germany, India, and Egypt who provided additional information on the science behind these historically significant blades, traditional koftgari decoration, as well as the translation of ancient passages that adorn the edged weapons in this study. This beautiful book is produced for everyone who loves the lore and lure of edged weapons, whether they are beginning students, historians, collectors, or connoisseurs of these most artistic and deadly weapons of warriors.

The Armenian genocide of 1915 has been well documented. Much less known is the Turkish genocide of the Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac peoples, which occurred simultaneously in their ancient homelands in and around ancient Mesopotamia - now Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The advent of the First World War gave the Young Turks and the Ottoman government the opportunity to exterminate the Assyrians in a series of massacres and atrocities inflicted on a people whose culture dates back millennia and whose language, Aramaic, was spoken by Jesus. Systematic killings, looting, rape, kidnapping and deportations destroyed countless communities and created a vast refugee diaspora. As many as 300,000 Assyro-Chaldean- Syriac people were murdered and a larger number forced into exile. The "Year of the Sword" (Seyfo) in 1915 was preceded over millennia by other attacks on the Assyrians and has been mirrored by recent events, not least the abuses committed by Islamic State. Joseph Yacoub, whose family was murdered and dispersed, has gathered together a compelling range of eye-witness accounts and reports which cast light on this 'hidden genocide.' Passionate and yet authoritative in its research, his book reveals a little-known human and cultural tragedy. A century after the Assyrian genocide, the fate of this Christian minority hangs in the balance.

Drawing on information from grave excavations, illustrations of battle scenes, and many classical and medieval literary sources, this book discusses how contemporaries showed swords were used and illustrates not only the beautiful form of the sword, but also its beauty of function.

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.

This study concerns the importance of the sword in Anglo-Saxon and Viking society, with reference to surviving swords and literary sources, especially Beowulf.

Unlike most makers of modern or futuristic films, George Lucas turned away from the standard special operatives or secret agents when he created the heroes for his epic Star Wars saga. Part knight, part monk, the Jedi Knights were an order of swordsmen that helped rule the universe in accordance with law and lofty principles of justice and honor. Without the Jedi, there could be no Star Wars, and without the lightsaber sword, there could be no Jedi. This examination of the Jedi Knights, their adversaries the Sith and their lightsaber swordplay throughout all six episodes of the franchise evaluates the ways in which Lucas blended science fiction with the most ancient and epic tales of traditional samurai and Western swordsmen. It presents swordsmanship as a way to better understand the Jedi Knights, focusing on the human movement and activity surrounding the weapon and the ways in which traditional Japanese martial arts were adapted for use in the films. Topics of discussion include the powerful effects of the master-apprentice relationship; the technical choreography used in the lightsaber scenes of the Star Wars films; and the historical precedents for the Jedi order, including the Sohei fighting monks of Japan, the Janissaries and Mamelukes of Islam, and the knights of the Templar, Hospitaller and Teutonic orders.

One of the problems pervading the study of medieval Islamic technology is the lack of surviving technical treatises. Tradition tended to be handed down by example and by word of mouth, and apprenticeships could last for decades. Fortunately, however, occasional treatises do exist. The treatise "On swords and their kinds" was written by the 9th century Muslim philosopher Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi. This work was commissioned by a powerful patron of scholarship, the Abbasid caliph Mu'tasim, and the content of the treatise presumably reflects the ruler's general interest in his army and its equipment, and his specific interest in the technical aspects of sword production. In this work, Kindi discusses the difference between iron and steel, distinguishes different qualities of sword blade, and different centres of swordsmithing. He refers to the Indian Ocean trade in steel ingots and to the distinctive character of European swords of the period. He includes technical terms used by the makers, and distinguishes swords by their physical features - form, measurements, weight, watered pattern, sculptured details, or inlaid ornaments. This publication includes the text and a translation of Kindi's treatise, and a detailed commentary on the work. The volume also includes a translation of Friedrich Schwarzlose's work on swords, which is based on the hundreds of references to swords in early Arabic poetry. Written in German, this extraordinary compendium of information was first published some 120 years ago; this volume makes it available again, and for the first time in English.

A Major work of twentieth-century American Literature.

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