The work ended up being substantially more than I had anticipated. Given the title and how it is often described in other reviews and the press, one would think that it was solely a work about the AK-47, its invention, and its influence/spread throughout the modern world.
It covers that, yes, but so much more. It really covers the entire spread of the development of the modern, automatic, battle rifle. From Gatling and Maxim through the STg44 and on through the AK itself and its near-peer on the other side of the fence the AR-15/M-16.
Deep is the coverage of the invention and usage of early “automatic” rifle devices throughout the English, German, and Russian empires of the 19th century as well as their early use by Americans. WWI and II are covered extensively. The gross failings of American military decisioning in the late 50’s and 60’s that lead to the disaster and deaths resulting from bureaucratic REMFs making unsound decisions affecting those in the line on the other side of the world is here too.
The AK becomes a focus in how it came out of all the earlier work and thinking and then how it affected the world around it once it sprung into existence. Whether it was the result of the theft of various other ideas and cobbled together behind the Iron Curtain into a creation that only the mass of Soviet Russia could product or whether it was the brainchild of a genius gunsmith is debated heavily herein and Chivers presented a balanced view of this as there being some truth in each view.
The Communist society from which the AK sprung could have produced no other battle rifle and the AK could not have been produced by any other society. As will all world changing items a confluence of tiny events and decisions spread out over extended periods of time result in something that is truly unique to its time and space. Kalashnikov just happened to be the progenitor of the most efficient killing machine humanity has ever seen and one that will be with us for literally a century or more to come.
An incredible piece of history and represents the best of what non-fiction can be. The Gun deserves a spot on every man’s shelf…just as every man should have an AK or two in his gun safe.