Modern Sports Helmets: Their History, Science and Art (Schiffer Books) Reviews
Modern Sports Helmets: Their History, Science and Art (Schiffer Books)
This wonderful new survey follows the evolution of the sports helmet from early military and aviation uses, through early motorcycle and auto racing, and to modern helmets used in a wide variety of sports today. The science of helmet design and manufacture is covered before moving into the art of the helmet. Helmets for six major sports are extensively covered: auto and motorcycle racing, bicycling, equestrian activities, skiing, football, and ice hockey. Some lesser known sports and their helme
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(out of 2 reviews)
List Price: $ 49.95
Price: $ 48.94
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Review by Sebastián Arboleda for Modern Sports Helmets: Their History, Science and Art (Schiffer Books)
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This book is unfortunately a very strange hybrid between an “eye-candy” coffee-table hit parade and a serious book that actually engages you with its text and captions. The author has tried to convey some of the hard choices that helmet designers have to make while designing headgear to pass the stringent standards test, but unfortunately his tone and some of the captions he uses do not always make sense or engage the reader in a meaningful way.
Perhaps the biggest criticism that can be made to the book is that the text portions describing the standards in head protection are very much disconnected from the significant image bank collected by the authors in their compilation for the book. The book is a strange hybrid in the sense that its scientific content is neither deep enough for the dedicated scientist or engineer to find it useful, nor is it accessible enough for the layman to understand without a fairly comprehensive scientific or engineering education.
Having said that, if you are interested in helmets, or are looking for a book to inspire you in designing a new one without having to engage in heavy Google-Image searching a perfect helmet to be inspired from, then maybe this is the book for you. If you are a scientist or an engineer, however, perhaps you would be better off starting out at the regulatory agencies’ sites and going through their material instead of relying on this workpiece to complete your research.
Review by David R. Thom for Modern Sports Helmets: Their History, Science and Art (Schiffer Books)
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This book by one of the gurus of helmetry is a great combination of Big Beautiful Pictures, interesting historical narrative and even real science of how helmets work and why. Since it came out two years ago, I have personally recommended this to many people who expressed an interest in knowing more about helmets, usually for professional reasons. I will continue to recommend it because it is far more than a nice coffee table book.
The Big Beautiful Pictures alone are worth the cost of the book, Dr. Newman has helmets in the book that you won’t find anywhere but private collections.
The technical chapters such as 4. The Biomechanics of Head Trauma and 5. Standards Development give an excellent overview and even full scientific references in the Endnotes chapter.
In summary, I strongly recommend this book for anyone with a personal or professional interest in helmets: why we need them, how they work, why they are the way they are.
David Thom
ACT Lab LLC