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Arms & Armor Highland Broadsword: Five Manuals of Scotish Regimental Swordsmanship Edited by Paul Wagner and Mark Rector $32.95 / Chiv. Bookshelf / 2004 One of the techniques of political domination is to play one's enemies against one another. Thus, the fierce fighting spirit of the Scots- some of the first victims of English expansionism-were pressed into service by the English. Similarly, the political struggles during the Napoleonic era necessitated the recruitment of mass armies. Of course, the new soldier had to be disciplined; thus, the existence of manuals of arms, books of instruction on how to form a recruit into a disciplined soldier. In this, the follow-up to their 2001 Highland Swordsmanship, Paul Wagner and Mark Rector replicate Angelo's 1799 Guards and Lessons in Highland Broadsword, Taylor's 1804 The Art of Defense on Foot with the Broad Sword, and Matthewson's A New Treatise on the Art of the Scotch Broadsword, to which are added Sinclair's 1790 civilian self-defense work Anti-Pugilism and MacGregor's somewhat dated Lecture on the Art of Defence. These are important works and theirs is a worthy task. Nonetheless, one still wonders if anyone at Chivalry Bookshelf really cared about this book. Even a cursory examination reveals shoddy copyediting and murky photographs printed on cheap paper stock. It is dubious whether Highland Broadsword is really worth the investment when the constituent works are available in facsimile, so all that remains of value are Wagner and Rector's introductory essays. —Ken Mondschein

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