| Weapons and Armor Contributor(s): Hart, Harold M. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0486242420 ISBN-13: 9780486242422 Publisher: Dover Publications OUR PRICE: $16.16 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 1982 Annotation: Pictorial arsenal of war-making instruments offers over 1400 copyright-free illustrations of battle-axes, bows & arrows, cannons, catapults, clubs, daggers, handguns, tanks, suits of armor, helmets, much more culled from old archives and publications. Sources listed. Index. Captions. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Military Science - History | Military - Weapons - Photography |
| Dewey: 623.441 |
| LCCN: 81017323 |
| Series: Dover Pictorial Archive |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 9.26" W x 12.21" (1.44 lbs) 192 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A misericorde is a medieval poniard or dagger made for one purpose -- to give the coup de grace or killing stroke. It was a beautiful, deadly instrument with a graphic mission; its very shape and cut graphically manifest its age and those who used it. Weapons throughout history chronicle ages, styles, and approaches to life and death; for artists, a weapons archive is a pictorial arsenal of powerful imagery. Here is such an arsenal: over 1,400 copyright-free illustrations of weapons and armor epitomizing the warlike times and peoples of this planet. Twenty-two categories of offensive and defensive arms and armor include battle-axes, bows and arrows, cannons, catapults, clubs, daggers, handguns, machine guns, powder horns, rifles, spears, swords, tanks, suits of armor, helmets, shields, and other means of combat. These copyright-free black-and-white illustrations (with a few half-tones) have been culled from almost 50 separate sources, ranging from books of ancient armor to scarce foreign periodicals and engravings. Along with the arms themselves are those who wield them -- soldiers, warriors, knights, horsemen, hunters, jousters, duelists, arms manufacturers, aborigines, centurions, dragoons, musketeers, samurai, crusaders, in full period regalia. One plate identifies all the parts of a 17th-century suit of armor -- visor, gorget, tassets, epauliere, cuisse, chain mail, gauntlet, etc.; many show details of intricate Renaissance and modern carving on pommels, blades, rifle butts, and boomerangs. Some remarkable devices include the Chinese Tartar 2-handed sword, Malay creese, Tormentum, Maxim gun, 16th-century Italian cross-bow, Soviet tank from World War II, Indian damascened cuirass, bamboo lance, halberd, and the scimitar. Unusual strokes may be visually delivered by such instruments as the Patagonian bola, a cane sword, the Zarabatana native blow gun, and the infamous "holy water sprinkler." Artists and designers will not find these rare emblems of warfare gathered together elsewhere in such a clearly printed format, so quickly accessible; historians of art, industry, and war as well as weapons fanciers will marvel at all the picturesque means here depicted of giving the coup de grace. |