The Sword & the Mind: The Classic Japanese Treatise on Swordsmanship and Tactics

It is no accident that the age of the great Japanese swordsmen coincided with that country's transition from a loose group of warrior states to a stable nation. As you will discover in The Sword & the Mind, this pivotal seventeenth-century how-to guide for the swordsman is also a penetrating philosophical and psychological treatise on strategy. Yagyu Munenori's step-by-step instructions for positioning, striking-with one and two swords-and defending oneself against an opponent can be applied with equal success to many types of conflict, from sword fight to political struggle to business competition.