BUDO PERSPECTIVES

Budo perspectives: Volume 1. Edited by alexander Bennett. AucklaNd, New ZealAnd: Kendo World Publications, Ltd, 2005.

This collection of essays born from the 2003 international symposium “The Direction of Japanese Budō in the 21st Century: Past, Present, and Future,” meets a momentous need of expanding the studies of Japanese martial arts into critical scholarship. Divided into four sections, the essays tease out philosophical, cultural, educational and pedagogical, and international theses that both examine historical significance as well as evaluate the contemporary factors intertwining Budō and modern society demonstrating that in a world where men and women no longer walk the streets of the globe with swords, Budō holds a place of importance in modern, global society. The presenters come to these studies as both scholars and martial artist giving their works both rigorous scholarship as well as keen insights as practitioners of various arts.

The most widely discussed arts include judo, kendo, karate, and aikido because of both the historical gravity of the leaders of these arts but also the wide-spread practice of these arts on a global scale. Perhaps not as widely practiced, kyudo also receives significant attention because of the near-death, rebirth, then early introduction to an international audience of the art and its since intertwining with Zen.

Rich with thorough scholarship, this collection of papers opens the door for further detailed analysis of Japanese martial arts in the English language.