One star and five stars sit in the same column here, and the distance between them has nothing to do with prose. Seventy-six ratings average out to 4.4, a figure that conceals a genuine split rather than a mild one, since the written column below it runs the whole span of grades. Jonathan Clements narrates his own audiobook, and that choice sharpens the disagreement considerably: the authority under argument is also the voice you spend seven hours and forty-eight minutes with.
September 30, 2020 spends most of its length on a bibliography rather than on the book itself. Before offering an opinion, that reader lists the author's other work: A Brief History of the Samurai, An Armchair Traveller's History of the Silk Road, Christ's Samurai on the Shimabara Rebellion, profiles of Khubilai Khan and Chairman Mao, a new translation of The Art of War, and volumes on modern China and modern Japan, along with a doctoral thesis at the University of Wales on the industrial history of Japanese animation. The conclusion follows from the list: the best single volume on martial arts history built on sound evidence and sourced research.
Dates on this page are worth checking, because three of the five verdicts were filed before the recording existed. The audio went up in October 2021; the earliest written response predates it by more than three and a half years, and two others arrive in 2018 and 2020. Whatever those readers were grading, it was not this performance. The star average does the same thing, blending assessments written before the recording existed with whatever came after, which is a reason to read the column rather than the number.
What Stands Out
February 24, 2023 puts the practical case in two sentences: a book stuffed with references for anyone who wants to keep digging, by an author whose writing style is engaging and who has a good sense of humor. Both halves matter. A debunking history can curdle into smugness quickly, and the tone described in that verdict suggests it does not. The reference density is the other half of the recommendation, though it comes with an audio caveat, since a book built for further digging is one you will want in a searchable form eventually.
Name density is the striking practical fact about this recording, and the roll call runs long: Yim Wing-chun, Wong Fei-hong and Ip Man from China; Kano Jigoro, Itosu Anko and So Doshin as their Japanese counterparts; Shaolin warrior monks, wuxia crime-fighting heroes, the conflicts and transformations of China, Korea and Japan, the cross-cultural influence of Japanese colonies in Asia, the migration of these arts to the United States, Bruce Lee's legacy and what the copy calls the dilemma of the ninja. An author reading his own work handles that kind of load differently from a hired performer, because the pronunciation decisions were already his to make, and on this material that is not a small advantage.
Origins are where the book turns genuinely surprising. Instead of opening with temples and legends, it approaches the martial arts from military exercise and calisthenics, which reframes the entire subject as physical culture long before it was ever mysticism. Seen from that angle the folklore becomes evidence of something else: what each era wanted its fighters to have been. That is a more interesting question than whether a particular monk existed, and it is the reason a survey spanning three countries holds together rather than fragmenting into national chapters.
Weak Spots in A Brief History of the Martial Arts
August 12, 2018 produced the one-star verdict, and it should be read rather than dismissed. The charge is that this is not close to an accurate account of anything martial, that terms and stock references get thrown around in a farce meant to look researched to a layman, and that the author has clearly never legitimately studied any form of martial art. The objection is about standing, not accuracy in any specific instance, which is exactly the ground the book chooses to fight on. Clements is arguing that the lineage claims practitioners inherit do not survive documentary scrutiny, and a practitioner reading that will hear his own tradition being called a story.
Compression is the second thing to plan for. Seven hours and forty-eight minutes covers China, Korea and Japan, secret societies, religious rebels, twentieth-century upheaval, colonial cross-currents, the postwar rise of martial arts as sport and entertainment, and a film history running through Bruce Lee. The word brief in the title is doing real work. Expect a survey with a strong argument rather than deep treatment of any single tradition, and expect names to arrive faster than a listener can hold them without a glossary.
Expect the folklore to be treated as folklore. The copy is upfront that any quest for the true story of Shaolin wanders into a labyrinth of forgeries, secret texts and modern retellings, and that the book gives center stage to the stories martial artists tell themselves about themselves, factual and fictional alike. That framing is the book's thesis, not a hedge.
Best Suited For
Practitioners willing to be corrected are the ideal audience, and two verdicts here make the case better than any summary could. May 18, 2022 comes from a martial artist who calls it valuable to get a reality check on the relative modernity of arts purporting to be ancient, and reports the book delivering exactly that. January 25, 2018 says the same thing more personally, crediting it with ending a lot of fantasies about where the martial arts came from. Historians of East Asia, film enthusiasts tracing the kung fu genre, and anyone who has wondered how much of the Shaolin story is documented will all find the survey rewarding.
Newcomers are well served too, precisely because nothing is assumed. The copy starts from Shaolin folk tales and the movies of Bruce Lee, two entry points almost everyone already holds, and works outward into secret societies, religious rebels and colonial-era transmission. Neither prior training nor familiarity with the terminology is needed to follow the argument.
Avoid it if your practice depends on its origin story, since the whole method here is source criticism applied to traditions that are often taught as revelation. Set it aside as well when technique, deep treatment of a single art, or a reverent tone is what you came for, and think twice about audio specifically if you plan to chase the references, because a book praised for its citations is one you will eventually want to search rather than replay.
Before You Press Play
- Voice: Jonathan Clements reads his own history, which puts the author's contested credentials directly in your ear rather than at one remove.
- Big ideas: Shaolin myth against the record, invented lineage, wuxia and kung fu cinema, the modern manufacture of ancient arts.
- Atmosphere: Skeptical, wry, briskly debunking.
- Worth it?: The best short account of where these traditions actually came from, and a poor fit for anyone attached to the founding stories.
A Few Questions About A Brief History of the Martial Arts
Is the martial arts audiobook read by the author?
Yes. Jonathan Clements is credited as both author and narrator, with no other voice on the recording. Little, Brown Audio released it in October 2021 at seven hours and forty-eight minutes, and the pronunciation of the Chinese, Japanese and Korean names throughout is the author's own.
Which traditions does the audiobook cover?
East Asian unarmed combat broadly, from Shaolin and kung fu through ninjutsu, with named figures including Yim Wing-chun, Wong Fei-hong, Ip Man, Kano Jigoro, Itosu Anko and So Doshin. China, Korea and Japan all feature, along with the arts' later migration to the United States.
