My Dogs & Guns Book

If my memory serves me well, it is stated in preface, that the book isn't meant to be the history of duels, but when reading, it very fortunately reads pretty much like a one, with cultural history of swords and development of blades thrown in as well. This is not perhaps complete and unabridged history of sword duels, as that would be impossible, but the book is full of intriguing real life stories of people having to or getting to fight duels, told in a matter of fact style, letting reader imagine the feelings of the persons involved. As the most interesting stories are, as everyone knows, either about swordfight or mating or both, this is a page turner.
As a non-english reader I found the tournament rules etc written in older tongue tedious and hard, and had to skip some, but that is not a base reason for giving only 4 stars.
Very much recommend to anyone interested in swords, and also to HEMA -practioners, as it is good to know about the cultural history of swordfight and not only the manuals of actual swordfight (which Hutton has done also, as a forerunner of HEMA). I also would recommend this to authors of historical or fantasy fiction, because as an insight to what kind of shit happens when people duel to death, this work is inspiring and makes your fight scenes feel less plastic.