Mike Loades: 5 books

This magnificent book tells the story of the evolution of swords, how they were made, how they were used, and the people that used them. It doesn't claim to give comprehensive coverage but instead takes certain surviving examples as landmarks on a fascinating journey through the history of swords....

Technologically sophisticated and powerful, the crossbow has long enjoyed a popular reputation for villainous superiority because it could be used with little training as a weapon of assassination. The study of bow designs, trigger mechanisms and spanning devices reveals a tale of considerable mechanical...

War bows dominated battlefields across the world for centuries. In their various forms, they allowed trained archers to take down even well-armoured targets from great distances, and played a key role in some of the most famous battles in human history. The composite bow was a versatile and devastatingly...

An iconic medieval missile weapon, the deadly longbow made possible the English victories at Crecy and Poitiers at the height of the Hundred Years' War. The longbow was the weapon at the heart of the English military ascendancy in the century after 1340. Capable of subjecting the enemy to a hail of...

An ancient design, emerging from Central Asia in the second millennium BC, the composite bow was adopted by a staggering variety of cultures, from nomadic tribal peoples such as the Huns, Turks and Mongols, to mighty empires such as the Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs and Chinese. Offering high...