--- Coeli Jimenez <
the_reserve2004@...>
wrote:
> Is there anything wrong with Stephen Turnbull's
> books? Like with the way he presents facts or
> something? Because I have one of his books, "Samurai
> Archives" so I was just wondering whether there are
> flaws with his works...
The Samurai Sourcebook is pretty good. And most of his
books, individually, are good. The biggest problem
I've seen is that most of the books are extremely
repetitive. The same anecdotes, the same outline, etc.
While some of this can be excused by "updating"--his
first books were published in the 1970's, so it'
understandable things will change somewhat--it's
almost like if you own one Turnbull book, you own them
all. The fact that he keeps publishing more and more
(Especially 'Samurai Warriors', 'Samurai Warlords',
etc.,) seems like he's just reshuffling and adding a
new title to make more money. The second complaint I
often see is "inaccuracies"--some of his earlier
stuff, especially, is, well, wrong on many points. He
does seem to correct that in later works, at least.
All that being said, he's great because with all his
faults, he gets information out there. He's much
easier to read than John Whitney Hall, etc. I just
bought 2 more books by him, and I'll let you know what
I think when I get them from Amazon.
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