Amberger still does most of the work himself, from researching, writing, and editing, to stuffing envelopes and doing the books. Last spring, he featured prominently alongside Sydney Anglo and Ewart Oakeshott on the Discovery Channel's Deadly Duels , now out on home video. But it has been worth waiting for. Amberger's research into the fine points of fencing history began in 1992. After poring over a few hundred books and articles, he not only proved modern fencing mythology wrong on this point, but also spun off a few dozen other research projects that one by one deconstructed accepted history.
Fencers have an innate aversion to agreeing with one another.
This goes for individual writers, individual schools within a system, or different systems. If you look at Schl ger fencing, for example, you'll notice that the negative opinion reflected about it in modern fencing literature is really a matter of ignorance. Most writers are sports fencers who couldn't tell a Schl ger from a nosehair clipper, let alone judge the technical and strategic fine points of a good Schl ger match. Old social prejudice, dregs of Nazi propaganda, and plain old limited horizons in this case determine the image they transmit to posterity , not factual or even personal knowledge. And this pattern becomes visible throughout fencing history, no matter if you look at the attitudes of the old English masters of defence toward the Mediterranean rapier schools, the salon fencer's opinions about the 18th century pugilists and gladiators, down to the general notions of thrust fencing's superiority over cut fencing.