The Gun - Hardcover

Chivers, C J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743270762 ISBN 13: 9780743270762

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2010

Synopsis

At a secret arms-design contest in Stalin’s Soviet Union, army technicians submitted a stubby rifle with a curved magazine. Dubbed the AK-47, it was selected as the Eastern Bloc’s standard arm. Scoffed at in the Pentagon as crude and unimpressive, it was in fact a breakthrough—a compact automatic that could be mastered by almost anyone, last decades in the field, and would rarely jam. Manufactured by tens of millions in planned economies, it became first an instrument of repression and then the most lethal weapon of the Cold War. Soon it was in the hands of terrorists.In a searing examination of modern conflict and official folly, C. J. Chivers mixes meticulous historical research, investigative reporting, and battlefield reportage to illuminate the origins of the world’s most abundant firearm and the consequences of its spread. The result, a tour de force of history and storytelling, sweeps through the miniaturization and distribution of automatic firepower, and puts an iconic object in fuller context than ever before. The Gun dismantles myths as it moves from the naïve optimism of the Industrial Revolution through the treacherous milieu of the Soviet Union to the inside records of the Taliban. Chivers tells of the 19th-century inventor in Indianapolis who designs a Civil War killing machine, insisting that more-efficient slaughter will save lives. A German attaché who observes British machine guns killing Islamic warriors along the Nile advises his government to amass the weapons that would later flatten British ranks in World War I. In communist Hungary, a locksmith acquires an AK-47 to help wrest his country from the Kremlin’s yoke, beginning a journey to the gallows. The Pentagon suppresses the results of firing tests on severed human heads that might have prevented faulty rifles from being rushed to G.I.s in Vietnam. In Africa, a millennial madman arms abducted children and turns them on their neighbors, setting his country ablaze. Neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, The Gun builds to a terrifying sequence, in which a young man who confronts a trio of assassins is shattered by 23 bullets at close range. The man survives to ask questions that Chivers examines with rigor and flair.

Throughout, The Gun animates unforgettable characters—inventors, salesmen, heroes, megalomaniacs, racists, dictators, gunrunners, terrorists, child soldiers, government careerists, and fools. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and from declassified records revealed for the first time, he presents a richly human account of an evolution in the very experience of war.

About this title

Review:

With impelling force, C. J. Chivers tells a remarkable story of how this one, superbly reliable firearm became the most abundant ever produced, and was to exceed the consequences even of Soviet nuclear know-how in the Cold War, and beyond (Alistair Horne, author of 'The Price of Glory' and 'A Savage War of Peace')

Dazzling ... startling ... The Gun does exactly what the best art history or music writing does - it opens our eyes to see anew the familiar (Doug Stanton, author of 'Horse Soldiers')

The Gun is for those who wonder how we fight today and why we fight that way. C. J. Chivers has given us a seminal work (James Bradley, author of 'Flags of Our Fathers')

Absorbing and beautifully written ... The story of this particular weapon becomes in an important sense the story of the violence and threat at the heart of the more than sixty years since the gun was first introduced (Richard Overy)

Chivers is a first-rate war correspondent and a prodigious researcher ... The Gun is likely to become the standard account of the world's standard assault rifle (Max Boot New York Times Book Review)

Chivers's mastery of history and engineering is matched by his mastery of language ... The Gun is a riveting read (Raymond Bonner Guardian)

Chivers tells the story well ... [he is] superb on the technical history of the AK-47 and its predecessors, but he also strikingly underlines its human cost as well as weaving adeptly through the propaganda (Tim Newark Financial Times)

A formidable feat of research and writing ... he has produced surely the final word on one of the most iconic weapons of our times (Roger Moorhouse Independent on Sunday)

Chivers is admirably meticulous in his research (Justin Marozzi Telegraph)

About the Author:

C. J. Chivers is a senior writer for The New York Times and is a former Times Moscow bureau chief. A onetime Marine Corps infantry captain, he received a National Magazine Award for his reconstruction in Esquire of the terrorist siege in a Russian school and shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage in the Times of combat in Afghanistan. His war reportage from Iraq and Afghanistan was selected by New York University as one of the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0743270762
• ISBN 13: 9780743270762
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 481