Shotokan Karate: A Precise History 2nd Ed Book by Harry Cook
"Shotokan Karate: A Precise History means exactly what it says. This is Shotokan as it was and is. The book is firmly based on thorough research, and the path taken by modern Shotokan Karate to reach the form in which it is taught today, is very carefully documented. The text is extensively footnoted, with references to an appendix which contains material too ample for the footnote format. There is a very useful glossary and index. Valuable as such a treatment is, this is not merely a dry organizational history. Numerous stories concerning the more famous karate-ka and extensive quotations illustrate and give vibrant life to the historical narrative."
Robert Dohrenwend, Ph.D.
Journal of Asian Martial Arts
Have you ever wondered!
• Did the JKA really practice Shotokan karate?
• Which instructors actually trained with Gichin Funakoshi?
• How were the Shotokan bunkai lost?
• Why are there so many errors in Shotokan Kata?
• Does modern Shotokan come from Gichin Funakoshi?
• Why does Shotokan no longer teach traditional weight training, body conditioning and weapons as they once did?
• Why has so much been done to suppress the true history of Shotokan
• Why are there so many forms of Shotokan
• Who is practicing the karate of Gichin Funakoshi
• How big is Shotokan's debt to Shorin Ryu
These and many thousands more questions are answered in the landmark new book, Shotokan Karate - A Precise History by noted historian and karate instructor Harry Cook. It is the very best book on the subject, and one that has earned the praise of the most respected martial artists around the world. The amount of information presented is staggering, and the material that supports it gives this book a literary pedigree which cannot be equalled. It will delight everyone from the casual reader to the serious history buff.
Remarkably, despite its mass of footnotes, the extensive reference material, and its solid scholarship, this book remains immensely readable and very exciting. It's like a highly involved detective story made up of the thousands of tiny clues the author has uncovered over the past thirty years. You will be functionally illiterate in a karate sense without a copy of this excellent new volume!
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