Fire and Water: The Art of Incendiary Aquatic Warfare in China
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Book Overview
An expert in Chinese Warfare, best-selling author Ralph Sawyer, offers a compelling account of the development of incendiary and aquatic warfare tactics in ancient China as pivotal elements in turning... This description may be from another edition of this product.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0813340659
ISBN13:9780813340654
Release Date:January 2004
Publisher:Wessex Archaeology
Length:352 Pages
Weight:1.43 lbs.
Dimensions:1.6" x 5.7" x 8.5"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
In-depth and exhaustively researched
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
This is everything you've ever wanted to know about how fire and water (mostly fire) was used in warfare in ancient China. How much could be said about it? Oh man... a lot. The level of detail in this book is astounding. Culling information from seemingly hundreds of ancient Chinese texts, Sawyer (who is best known for his best-selling translation of Sun-Tzu's Art of War) gives an in-depth play-by-play account of thousands of years of tribal battles. The stories behind the creative implementations of the elements themselves are fascinating; even in this age of hi-tech gizmo warfare, there are new tricks I've learned from this book-and they were done thousands of years ago! But the actual historical background is scholarly and detailed to the point of academic overload, and it could probably only be followed (let alone remembered) by the most passionate of Sinophiles.
An Amazing Scholarly Piece
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
As a huge fan of military history, I found this book a fascinating, well written, read. The illustrations (taken from ancient chinese texts) are not florid and are there to enhance the text, the huo-shen (spirit fire) looked extremely deadly.
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