Martial Musings: A Portrayal of Martial Arts in the 20th Century

De: Robert W. Smith

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

In every century there are unique individuals whose fate makes them standing symbols of unique merit and accomplishment. Robert W. Smith's Martial Musings stands out as the sole literary work which offers readers a special perspective of martial arts as they evolved during the 20th century. Smith personally escorts the reader on a martial arts tour. He starts with his own initial involvement in the arts, then launches outward, across the nation, over to Asia, and eventually home again. Some of the topics covered in the book include martial arts theory and practice, portrayals of leading Asian instructors, profiles of Westerners who studied the arts and brought them back to their respective countries and an historical record of the evolution of fighting arts in the West. Martial Musings represents the fourteenth book Smith has written on the subject and is a broader, somewhat historical, semi-autobiographical commentary on martial arts in the 20th century. But, what makes this book such a joy to devour is the literary relish Smith stir-fries in with the books basic ingredients. He astutely couples combatives with literary panache, and a ready wit. In short, Martial Musings introduces the reader to the individuals who shaped martial arts in the 20th century. The hardbound book has 398 pages and over 300 illustrations with a full-color cover and two-color text pages.

Terrible AI reading

I read this book years ago and really enjoyed it. The AI reading is inexcusably bad. Number one- why would you use a women's voice for a work written by a man obviously
written primarily for men? And the voice itself is the quality of very early canned automated voices. But most disconcerting is the " reader"
does not follow the rules of punctuation- stops and starts in mid sentence, sentences blending, no infection or pauses.
I cant listen to it.