Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - HISTORY OF STEEL IN EASTERN ASIA EXHIBITION NOW ONLINE

Rivkin · 1st January 2007, 07:24 AM

Gentlemen,

I apologize for saying something very controversial, but:
100 years ago a collector was typically a nobleman with a profound education, who upon feeling the approach of his demise would write most likely a single work that would encompass his lifelong activities.
Today a typical weapons collector is a nationalistic young fellow who after a few sessions of karate decides to bless the world with the description of his own country's martial culture. From this point on he can spent a few years doing a Ph.D. on the subject, where he will learn that he can not really learn much in academic environment since arms and armour is not a significant part of academic classes, and 99% of historian and art historians have their knowledge of the subject formed by movies and the BS published by Osprey. Another option is that he will write a book, which is typically a bizarre mixture of quotes from old classical texts, photographs of his friends' swords and his own research, the latter is typically beyound BS.

From this point I see no reason to popularize the knowledge or studies of arms and armour, but rather deepen it. As of today we lack the people who publish at least 1 article on the subject every 4 months or so, we lack any kind of educational opportunities extended to students at universities, which makes our community pretty much off-mainstream. As of now there are only very few people whom I would experts in some part of our field, the rest I would put together with me in the category of enthusiasts.

I obviously have not read the catalogue and I have not seen here anything that would be really negate the information given by the exhibition (it is kind of hard to give precise years of any undeclared war). If the catalogue is ridden with errors, it is indeed a grief thing. However we just recently had some other publication coming out which is ridden with errors, as obviously we had many times before... It is bad, but that is what enthusiasts do - they try and hopefully they learn on their mistakes. Should we stop the presses - no, I think we do not. We just should spend more time collaborating, proof reading, emailing the materials prior to the publication. And this is what I think to be even more important than promoting the knowledge of swords in the general public (in which I do not really believe) - deepen and professionalize our knowledge.

1st January 2007, 07:24 AM	#36
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Gentlemen, I apologize for saying something very controversial, but: 100 years ago a collector was typically a nobleman with a profound education, who upon feeling the approach of his demise would write most likely a single work that would encompass his lifelong activities. Today a typical weapons collector is a nationalistic young fellow who after a few sessions of karate decides to bless the world with the description of his own country's martial culture. From this point on he can spent a few years doing a Ph.D. on the subject, where he will learn that he can not really learn much in academic environment since arms and armour is not a significant part of academic classes, and 99% of historian and art historians have their knowledge of the subject formed by movies and the BS published by Osprey. Another option is that he will write a book, which is typically a bizarre mixture of quotes from old classical texts, photographs of his friends' swords and his own research, the latter is typically beyound BS. From this point I see no reason to popularize the knowledge or studies of arms and armour, but rather deepen it. As of today we lack the people who publish at least 1 article on the subject every 4 months or so, we lack any kind of educational opportunities extended to students at universities, which makes our community pretty much off-mainstream. As of now there are only very few people whom I would experts in some part of our field, the rest I would put together with me in the category of enthusiasts. I obviously have not read the catalogue and I have not seen here anything that would be really negate the information given by the exhibition (it is kind of hard to give precise years of any undeclared war). If the catalogue is ridden with errors, it is indeed a grief thing. However we just recently had some other publication coming out which is ridden with errors, as obviously we had many times before... It is bad, but that is what enthusiasts do - they try and hopefully they learn on their mistakes. Should we stop the presses - no, I think we do not. We just should spend more time collaborating, proof reading, emailing the materials prior to the publication. And this is what I think to be even more important than promoting the knowledge of swords in the general public (in which I do not really believe) - deepen and professionalize our knowledge.