Books published by Legacy Books Press

Rapier fencing and duelling during the 16th and 17th centuries was dominated by the Italian masters, whose systems of sword fighting became increasingly sophisticated. Breaking away from this trend, Nicoletto Giganti developed something different: a frugal system of fencing that cut to the core of what a swordfight was and how to win it. Giganti's Scola overò Teatro, or The School of the Sword, became one of the most influential systems of fencing across Europe in the seventeenth century.In this remarkable new translation by historical fencing instructor and historian Aaron Taylor Miedema, author of Bayonets and Blobsticks, Giganti's work is presented fresh to the modern reader. Copiously illustrated with redrawings of dozens of Giganti's original plates, over 60 new photographs, and even a new plate, Giganti's detailed curriculum is augmented by comprehensive annotation and commentary. Regardless of whether you are a historian, a casual reader with an interest in the sword, or an accomplished swordsman, Nicoletto Giganti's The School of the Sword is a fascinating guide to the art of rapier fencing.

The year was 2016.  The culture wars were deepening, with no end in sight.  As the marketplace of ideas faded further into memory, one writer tried to bring it back – and succeeded.In September 2016 Robert B. Marks’ Garwulf’s Corner returned to The Escapist for another year, presenting a moderate and mature look at many of the hot-button issues facing pop culture.  Months after Garwulf’s Corner’s second year came to an end the Escapist was sold to another media company – and its new editor-in-chief libeled everybody who had worked there since 2014.  During the ensuing legal action, the whole of Garwulf’s Corner was removed from the pages of the Escapist and all but destroyed...until now.Insightful, compelling, and still relevant, this volume contains:- The second year of Garwulf’s Corner, covering topics ranging from Star Wars movies to outrage culture to video games.- Previously unpublished installments looking at Minecraft, video game addiction, and more.- The full run of The Most Important PC Games of All Time, a comprehensive look at the decades-long history of the video game from the 1940s to today.From No Man’s Sky to Police Quest, from Fox’s Gotham to military science fiction, take a fresh and new odyssey back into the world of pop culture.

In the later years of the 17th century, as England and France fought for dominance in Europe, Ireland became their battlefield. Known as the Williamite War in Ireland, a coalition of the willing from England, Scotland, Holland and Denmark waged a campaign against Jacobite Ireland and the French forces of King Louis XIV. Once the war was over, Ireland would be forever changed. Remarkable and gripping, this is Andreas Claudianus' first-hand account of the Danish campaign in Ireland, presented for the first time in a bilingual English and Latin edition. Frank, brutal, and compelling, Claudianus provides a look at 17th century warfare not from the world of generals, princes, and kings, but from the perspective of the common foot soldier.

At the dawn of the 21st Century, the video game industry experienced a period of wild creativity, fighting for recognition as an art form while making the transformation into a media juggernaut. And as it did, Garwulf's Corner was there, watching and commentating.One of the earliest, if not the first, video game issues columns on the Internet, Garwulf's Corner ran every two weeks from 2000 to 2002 on Diabloii.net. Written by Robert B. Marks, author of Diablo: Demonsbane and The EverQuest Companion, it explored everything up to and including Diablo, the birth of artificial intelligence, hackers, literature and movies, and the video game's struggle for legitimacy.Collected here for the first time in print - with new introductions and updates - are all 52 installments of Garwulf's Corner, along with the three columns written years later for the unpublished Blurred Edge Magazine, the holiday issue that never was, and the author's final word (so far) on Diablo III and Diablo in general. Insightful, controversial, witty, and thought-provoking, Garwulf's Corner is a journey into the world of video games that is still relevant today.

For a long time, it has been accepted that the bayonet was an inadequate weapon in World War I - an anachronism, relied upon by foolish generals eager to relive the glories of the Napoleonic Wars while incapable of coming to terms with the modern battlefield and trench warfare. But was this the reality of the Western Front of the Great War, or a myth perpetuated by historians?In reality, the soldiers of World War I seemed oblivious to what appears so obvious to critics ninety years removed. They quite liked their bayonets, and they used them - often. In this fascinating and provocative study, Aaron Taylor Miedema takes a new look at the role of the bayonet and shock tactics on the Western front. Through the experience of the Canadian Corps - the British shock troops of the Western Front - he challenges the conventional view of the bayonet as an obsolete weapon system and rekindles the controversial debate over technologies, old and new, on the field of battle.

The Western Front of World War I saw some of the first major steps in a newly founded tradition - the war documentary. Known as "kinematographers," these men braved the front lines - sometimes filming in shell holes and often mistaken for machine gun emplacements - to capture the war on film and bring it home to motion picture audiences. One of the most famous among them was Geoffrey H. Malins, cinematographer and editor of The Battle of the Somme. These are Malins' experiences, in his own words. Illustrated with over 40 photographs, Malins takes us from one end of the Western Front to the other, on the ground and in the air. He tells of his adventures, the remarkable people he encounters, his near-misses, and the history he witnessed and committed to film for posterity. Thrilling and horrifying, How I Filmed the Great War is the amazing story of the man who faced the German army and the terrors of the Western Front - not with a rifle or a machine gun, but with a movie camera.

Ancient Greece and Rome aren't usually remembered for their sense of humour. However, in reality the ancient Greeks and Romans often refused to take themselves seriously. Strange and outlandish activities abounded - including somebody accidentally exposing himself while dancing sideways at his wedding (those wearing bed sheets didn't wear underwear) and a group of drunk young men thinking their house is sinking at sea, and tossing all their furniture out the windows. In this new edition, R. Drew Griffith and Robert B. Marks take you on a lively and funny journey through the more bizarre activities of the ancient world, venturing out as far as Egypt, Babylon, and Scandinavia, ranging everywhere from moochers to quacks to shrews to perhaps the oldest laundromat joke in history, and even revealing the most terrible thing you can do to anybody involving a radish.

Between 1870 and 1871, the world changed forever.The Franco-Prussian War is often a forgotten war, its significance lost amidst larger conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. But, while it lasted less than a year, its aftermath would shape the course of history for decades to come.In this comprehensive and epic account, John-Allen Price explores how this short but far-reaching war came to be, bringing the men who shaped history to life. Price examines the Franco-Prussian War and its world, from the seeds of the war in the Age of Napoleon to the Paris Commune, and the aftershocks that led to a century of slaughter, a war to end all wars, and an even greater war after that."John-Allen Price's *The War that Changed the World* is a brilliantly written and exhaustively researched masterwork. With all the attention to detail one would expect of Keegan or Ambrose, Price has created a stunningly entertaining and thorough examination of an historical era which shaped the conflicts of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Price's examination of the Franco-Prussian war is engrossing, entertaining and delightfully readable¿presented with a historian's eye for detail and a novelist's ear for story. Students of military history pass this book by at their peril."- New York Times Bestselling Author Michael A. Stackpole

Star Wars is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the Western world. The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end.But it didn't start out that way.In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator. For this unauthorized account, he has pored through over four hundred sources, from interviews to original scripts, to track how the most powerful modern epic in the world was created, expanded, and finalized into the tale an entire generation has grown up with.