A good read

[Josef]

Just fishing for some book recommendations from people who've read them. Trouble with E-shopping is you don't get to thumb through the pages before you buy.

I like to study JSA History. Eg: History of Iai, MJER, Kenjutsu ect.

I would prefer books that just concertrate on history, too many books I feel try to cover every aspect and the history gets reduced to a chapter.

So any help on good reads for to buy would be helpful, thanks.

[CEB]

Not martial art related but you may find some of Stephen Turnbull's work interesting.

[A. Bakken]

Japanese Swordsmanship, Theory and Practice by Draeger and Warner has a good historical overview of the development of iai and kenjutsu. Then there are Draeger's Classical Bujutsu and Classical Budo.

For further suggestions, take a look at Meik Skoss' reviews:
http://www.koryu.com/books/bookreviews.html#Reviews
as well as the Bibliography section of the Japanese Sword Arts FAQ:
http://www.kendo-sask.com/swordfaq.htm#_Toc422549504