"The gun" by C J Chivers. Half of this is about the Mikhail Kalashnikov, his AK-47 and its successors, knockoffs, and derivatives, and what they meant to the world. In the '60s, it meant revolutionaries and guerrillas. Since the '70s, that has meant terrorists, and in the '90s, child soldiers and warlords. AK may also stand for "Africa Killer."
About a quarter is the development of automatic weapons, from Dr. Gatling through WW1. WW2 is lightly covered, but the Sturmgewehr 44 is in there. Another quarter is the slow American response to develop an assault rifle, followed by the hasty adoption of the AR-15/M-16 and its teething troubles.
Some of the details here were new to me, but I had read the overall story before. I give it 3 stars.
Now, for what I think could have been added.
The author does take the DoD to task for suddenly jumping on the barely tested AR-15, and not opening up competitive bids. I suspect there was a huge element of the McNamara & whiz-kids mentality of "doing everything in a new way," I might have explored that.
If other American companies might have developed assault rifles, what of Europe? Were all of the gun companies also blind to the new type of weapon, did they not have ideas? The NATO standardization fight was touched on, but I don't know if it was reopened at any point.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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