Books about Dueling from Amazon.com

The remarkable true story of the hoax that bewildered Nineteenth-Century New York and created tabloid journalism

In the sweltering summer of 1835, New York City, still reeling from the effects of a cholera epidemic, was coaxed into a mood approaching mass hysteria by a series of articles in the Sun, the first of New York City's penny papers. Seven articles, purporting to be the first report of the lunar discoveries made by a world-famous British astronomer, described in astonishing detail the existence of life on the moon--birds, buffalo, one-horned zebras, and four-foot-tall man bats. Intended as a satirical attack on the religious philosophers of the day, "The Moon Hoax" became the most widely circulated newspaper story in the world. And the Sun, a brash working-class upstart paper less than two years old, became the most widely read newspaper in the world, giving birth to a media revolution in the New World and a brand of tabloid journalism that prevails today.

The Sun and the Moon overflows with larger than life characters--known and unknown to modern readers, including Richard Adams Locke, British radical turned newspaper editor and creator of the hoax; a young, upwardly mobile, and ever industrious P. T. Barnum; and the fledgling editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, a fellow named Edgar Allan Poe. These three men, along with countless others, have parts to play in the delightful, entertaining, and surprisingly true story of how the Moon Hoax captivated New Yorkers and ultimately triggered the birth of the modern newspaper business..
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During the Renaissance, rapier-dueling and fencing evolved into one of the most deadly and effective of Western martial arts. Salvator Fabris (1544-1618), a Grand Master from Padua, Italy, became arguably the most Internationally-celebrated teacher of this style. The roster of his princely pupils included the Archbishop of Bremen and the King of Denmark, under whose patronage he published his exceptional rapier-fencing manual Lo Schermo, overo Scienza d’Arme (On fencing, or martial knowledge).

Fabris’ manual became an instant-bestseller around European fencing circles: it was re-printed continually from 1606 to 1713, translated into several languages, imitated and even plagiarized as Fabris’ style took the continent by storm.

Chivalry Bookshelf is proud to present Fabris’ manual in modern English, translated and edited by experienced rapierist and leading Fabris researcher Tom Leoni. Western martial artists and fencing historians alike will delight in reading this great treatise that includes detailed instruction on:

• Fencing with the rapier (theory and practice)
• Fencing with the rapier and left-hand dagger (theory and practice)
• Fencing with the rapier and cloak (theory and practice)
• Advanced techniques on how to defeat the opponent without stopping in guard
• Disarms, cape-throws and fighting off a dagger-wielding attacker

No other Master is as thorough and systematic as Fabris in defining the tactics, the techniques and the mechanics of this martial system; furthermore, the language used by the author is amazingly "modern" in nature, resulting in a text that is very easy to read and understand. The book is graced with the original didactical illustration by court painter Ian Halbeeck and others, making it as valuable to the modern student as it was to the dueling gentleman of the 1600’s.

Our edition also includes a technical rapier glossary, a biographical sketch of Fabris within his cultural context and a valuable introduction by Classical fencing Master Sean Hayes.

There is no modern interpretation that can come close to explaining rapier fencing as well as the words of Fabris, an author who is gaining more and more enthusiastic followers in today’s Western Martial Arts’ world. This is a testament to his style, which is dynamic, athletic, strikingly baroque, and is as effective as only a refined art can be..
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The medieval justice of trial by combat evolved into the private duel by sword and pistol, with thousands of honorable men-and not-so-honorable women-giving lives and limbs to wipe out an insult or prove a point. The duel was essential to private, public, and political life, and those who followed the elaborate codes of procedure were seldom prosecuted and rarely convicted-for, in fact, they were obeying a grand old tradition.

Based on her fascinating 1997 Smithsonian article, Barbara Holland's Gentlemen's Blood is the first trade book to trace the remarkable, often gruesome, sometimes comical history of the Western tradition of defending one's honor.
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This colorful and vividly descriptive book traces the sword and its use throughout the golden age of swordsmanship Using examples from history, Hutton charts the development of various types of weapons, demonstrates the techniques and tactics of the key practitioners, and brings to the fore the heroes and villains of legendary duels, private quarrels, public feuds, and prize fights. Hutton examines such deadly weapons as the Two-Hand Sword, the Rapier Foil, the Dagger Foil, the Stiletto, the Flamberge, the Small Sword, the Falchion, and the Broadsword. He illustrates their use with famous and infamous fights from the history of combat. .
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Television shows like CSI, Forensic Files, and The New Detectives make it look so easy. A crime-scene photographer snaps photographs, a fingerprint technician examines a gun, uniformed officers seal off a house while detectives gather hair and blood samples, placing them carefully into separate evidence containers. In a crime laboratory, a suspect's hands are meticulously examined for gunshot residue. An autopsy is performed in order to determine range and angle of the gunshot and time-of-death evidence. Dozens of tests and analyses are performed and cross-referenced. A conviction is made. Another crime is solved. The credits roll.The American public has become captivated by success stories like this one with their satisfyingly definitive conclusions, all made possible because of the wonders of forensic science. Unfortunately, however, popular television dramas do not represent the way most homicide cases in the United States are actually handled. Crime scenes are not always protected from contamination; physical evidence is often packaged improperly, lost, or left unaccounted for; forensic experts are not always consulted; and mistakes and omissions on the autopsy table frequently cut investigations short or send detectives down the wrong investigative path.In "Forensics Under Fire", Jim Fisher makes a compelling case that these and other problems in the practice of forensic science allow offenders to escape justice and can also lead to the imprisonment of innocent people. Bringing together examples from a host of high-profile criminal cases and familiar figures, such as the JonBenet Ramsey case and Dr. Henry Lee who presented physical evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, along with many lesser known but fascinating stories, Fisher presents daunting evidence that forensic science has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential and the public's expectations..
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A collection of essays by American and Mexican scholars, offering perspectives on the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Topics addressed include the influence of Great Britain; the role of the first war correspondents; and the reasons for the collaboration by many Mexicans with US troops..
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Researching memoirs, trial transcripts and period newspapers, Paul Kirchner has uncovered a wealth of eyewitness accounts of deadly duels - many translated into English for the first time. More than 60 encounters with the sword or pistol are covered, including horseback duels, bowie knife duels, suicide duels and profiles of such notorious duelists as "Fighting" Fitzgerald, Aaron Burr and Benito Mussolini..
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As the huge crowd seethed with pent-up excitement, the two deadly enemies studied each other intently, their breath hot behind their visors. Each sought the other’s death as fire and water seek each other’s annihilation. The walled field, at first a prison, now became a crucible where one man would be destroyed and the other purged in the name of justice. They would fight not only without quarter, but also without rules. And a horrible fate awaited the lady if her husband should lose . . .

The gripping, atmospheric true story of the “duel to end all duels” in medieval France: a trial by combat pitting a knight against a squire accused of violating the knight’s beautiful young wife

In 1386, a few days after Christmas, a huge crowd gathers at a Paris monastery to watch the two men fight a duel to the death meant to “prove” which man’s cause is right in God’s sight. The dramatic true story of the knight, the squire, and the lady unfolds during the devastating Hundred Years War between France and England, as enemy troops pillage the land, madness haunts the French court, the Great Schism splits the Church, Muslim armies threaten Christendom, and rebellion, treachery, and plague turn the lives of all into toys of Fortune.
At the heart of the tale is Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight who returns from combat in Scotland to find his wife, Marguerite, accusing Jacques LeGris, her husband’s old friend and fellow courtier, of brutally raping her. The knight takes his cause before the teenage King Charles VI, the highest judge in France. Amid LeGris’s vociferous claims of innocence and doubts about the now pregnant Marguerite’s charges (and about the paternity of her child), the deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” that leaves her fate, too, in the balance. For if her husband and champion loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser.
Carrouges and LeGris, in full armor, eventually meet on a walled field in Paris before a massive crowd that includes the king and many nobles of the realm. A fierce fight on horseback and then on foot ensues during which both combatants suffer wounds—but only one fatal. The violent and tragic episode was notorious in its own time because of the nature of the alleged crime, the legal impasse it provoked, and the resulting trial by combat, an ancient but increasingly suspect institution that was thereafter abolished.
Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, The Last Duel brings to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. It is at once a moving human drama, a captivating detective story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue.

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