Overview
It is the world's most widely recognized weapon, the most profuse tool for killing ever made. More than fifty national armies carry the automatic Kalashnikov, as do an array of police, intelligence, and security agencies all over the world. In this tour de force, prizewinning New York Times reporter C. J. Chivers traces the invention of the assault rifle, following the miniaturization of rapid-fire arms from the American Civil War, through World War I and Vietnam, to present-day Afghanistan, when Kalashnikovs and their knockoffs number as many as 100 million, one for every seventy persons on earth. It is the weapon of state repression, as well as revolution, civil war, genocide, drug wars, and religious wars; and it is the arms of terrorists, guerrillas, boy soldiers, and thugs. It was the weapon used to crush the uprising in Hungary in 1956. American Marines discovered in Vietnam that the weapon in the hands of the enemy was superior to their M16s. Fidel Castro amassed them. Yasir Arafat procured them for the P.L.O. A Kalashnikov was used to assassinate Anwar Sadat. As Osama bin Laden told the world that the winds of faith and change have blown, a Kalashnikov was by his side. Pulled from a hole, Saddam Hussein had two Kalashnikovs. It is the world's most widely recognized weapon--cheap, easy to conceal, durable, deadly. But where did it come from? And what does it mean? Chivers, using a host of exclusive sources and declassified documents in the east and west, as well as interviews with and the personal accounts of insurgents, terrorists, child soldiers, and conventional grunts, reconstructs through the Kalashnikov the evolution of modern war. Along the way, he documents the experience and folly of war and challenges both the enduring Soviet propaganda surrounding the AK-47 and many of its myths.
Full Product Details
Author: C J Chivers ,
Michael Prichard
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Imprint: Tantor Audio
ISBN: 9798200102709
Publication Date: 12 October 2010
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
"Eye-opening.... An entertaining work that combines technical details, biographies, political maneuvering and insightful military history.-- ""Kirkus"""
Author Information
C. J. Chivers is a senior writer for the New York Times and its former Moscow bureau chief. He was an infantry officer in the U.S. Marines from 1988 to 1994, serving in the Gulf War. He is the recipient of numerous prizes, including a shared Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009 for coverage in Afghanistan and citations from the Overseas Press Club. He is currently on leave from the Times. Michael Prichard is a Los Angeles-based actor who has played several thousand characters during his career, over one hundred of them in theater and film. He is primarily heard as an audiobook narrator, having recorded well over five hundred full-length books. His numerous awards and accolades include an Audie Award for Tears in the Darkness by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman and six AudioFile Earphones Awards. He was named a Top Ten Golden Voice by SmartMoney magazine. He holds an MFA in theater from the University of Southern California.
