Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor

The strength of this book is to be found in the amazing photos found throughout. This alone makes the book worth every penny. It is quite inspiring to look through and I've gotten a lot of reproduction ideas from it.

Here are the problems I have with this book:

1) With a few exceptions, the artefacts shown in the book do not have any direct references as to where they come from, making it difficult or impossible to double check anything. There are indirect references on the last page, where photo credits are given, but that is not always specific enough to help. Why is this important? Well...

2) I question the accuracy of some of the measurements that are given. For example, on pg. 65 the "Double-Edged Sword" is given as having a weight of 4 lbs, which is awfully heavy for a real sword of the period. The length also seems short at 32" (unless that refers to just the blade, but I don't believe such is specified anywhere). It'd be nice to know where the original is kept or elsewhere published to double check things.

3)While most of the info seems good, some of it is very wrong. I'm thinking mostly of pp. 48-49 regarding the Bronze and Iron Age warriors. For example, they assign the bronze sword on the bottom to the Celts, but this pre-dates the La Tene period by at least five centuries. No actual La Tene swords are even shown! The battle axe on pg 49 (upper left) is actually a Viking broad axe from the 10th - 11th Cent A.D., and certainly not Iron, let alone Bronze Age. The only Celtic artefacts are the helmet, the two daggers, and the Battersea shield (and even these are, technically, Insular rather than truly Celtic). Really, this should be two separate sections, one on Bronze Age and one on Iron Age Celts.

4) Though they're generally pretty good about stating whether or not a particular artefact is original or a modern reproduction, they do slip up in a couple places. Specifically, on pp. 52 and 53 the "Mail Shirt with Dagged Points" and the "Gjermundbu-Style Helmet" are definitely not original artefacts, and are most certainly modern repros, but are not labeled as such. As an aside, the "Swedish Helmet" actually dates from around 600-700 AD, and I think they misunderstand the method of construction, as well.

So, in sum, this is a good book but do not take it as a primary source. Be sure to double check details with more detailed sources.

I agree with the other reviewer, that this book is a museum. But in my opinion the only good part of that is the pictures. I can't see the greatness of the writing. That was what bored me to death. This would make a good coffee table book.

All I can say about this book is "Wow!" I purchased this as a gift for a friend, and truly enjoyed browsing through page after page of incredibly detailed pictures, each with a description of the weapon, its age, etc. I felt like I was touring a museum rather than reading a book. There's a great balance between ancient and modern weapons, and there are some very unique and fascinating weapons included. It's also conveniently arranged in chronological order. The book itself is beautiful, and heavy enough to live up to its name!

This book is a gift for my boyfriend that is going to be read for days. He is a history buff and will spend hours looking at this book!!! What a great Christmas gift!!!

I bought this book to serve me as reference and idea book for the fantasy illustrations I do and I have to say it does an excellent job.

There are enough photos in it to satisfy thirst for visual of any man and the minimal but informative and to the point amount of text that follows every image. The combination makes for a fast and entertaining read easy to browse through.

I found it to be an extremely rewarding experience.