Chinese Archery

Chinese Archery is a broad view of traditional archery in China as seen through the eyes of historians, philosophers, poets, artists, novelists and strategists from 1500 BC until the present century. The book is written around parallel text translations of classical chinese sources some famous and some little known in which Chinese writers give vivid and detailed explanations of the techniques of bow-building, archery and crossbow technique over the centuries. The author is both a sinologist and practising archer; his translations make the original Chinese texts accessible to the non-specialist. Written for readers who may never have picked up a book about China, but still containing a wealth of detail for Chinese scholars, the book brings the fascinating history of Chinese archery back to life through the voices of its most renowned practitioners.

Stephen Selby holds an MA (Hons) Degree in Chinese from Edinburgh University. He has worked in Hong Kong for twenty years, during which period he has pursued his interest in Chinese language and culture, and has published a number of articles on Chinese culture, history and traditional law. With a keen interest in Asiatic archery, he has done research in China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia. He is the founder of the Asian Traditional Archery Research Network (ATARN) which has an Internet web page at www.atarn.org.