Machine Gun: The Story of the Men and the Weapon That Changed the Face of War by Anthony Smith

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Light foxing to foredges and title page. Pages have sunned. Dust jacket has creasing at edges and at spine, particulalr top edge.

The machine gun is a uniquely American invention that, more than any other single invention, revolutionised how war was waged. Machine Gun tells the story of the people responsible for the development of the weapon itself, beginning with Samuel Colt's creation of the first mass-produced, rapid-firing revolver, to Dr Richard Gatling and his Gatling Gun, and Hiram Maxim, whose Maxim Gun was the first truly automatic weapon.

Smith traces the uses of the rapid-fire gun and its slow integration into the weaponry of military forces around the world. First used primarily to 'pacify' native populations, the machine gun was not fully integrated into military tactics until after the unprecedented casualties of World War I and the resultant social upheaval that utterly changed the very nature of tactical warfare.

Machine Gun is an enthralling account of the people who invented and promoted the weapon, how it affected the very nature of warfare, and of the society out of which it arose - and which it in turn transformed inexorably.