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The Gun
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
It is the world's most widely recognized weapon, the most profuse tool for killing ever made. More than 50 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 70 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.
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- A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
- By: Daniel Bolger
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 20 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Over a 35-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions - unusual for a general.
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An apolitical account of our recent wars.
- By DMgraphicGlass on 04-07-15
By: Daniel Bolger
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The Unknowns
- The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
- By: Patrick K. O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliantly researched and vividly told, The Unknowns is a timeless tale of heeding the calls of duty and brotherhood and humanizes the most consequential event of the 20th century, which still casts a shadow a century later. Celebrated military historian and best-selling author Patrick O'Donnell illuminates the saga behind the creation of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and recreates the moving ceremony during which it was consecrated.
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The Unknowns
- By Logophile on 05-09-19
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The Harlem Hellfighters
- When Pride Met Courage
- By: Walter Dean Myers, Bill Miles
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Walter Dean Myers and renowned filmmaker Bill Miles deftly tell the true story of the unsung American heroes of the 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I in The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage. At a time of widespread bigotry and racism, the African American soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment put their lives on the line in the name of democracy.
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Great Accessible History
- By Christopher on 02-21-21
By: Walter Dean Myers, and others
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This Kind of War
- The Classic Korean War History
- By: T. R. Fehrenbach
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 24 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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This Kind of War is a monumental study of the conflict that began in June 1950. Successive generations of U.S. military officers have considered this book an indispensable part of their education. T. R. Fehrenbach's narrative brings to life the harrowing and bloody battles that were fought up and down the Korean Peninsula.
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Great narrative, frustrating redundancy
- By Ted on 08-16-10
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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Vietnam
- An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, Peter Noble
- Length: 33 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the US in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.
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A more nuanced view than Ken Burns' companion book
- By Vu on 10-21-18
By: Max Hastings
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The Face of Battle
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this major and wholly original contribution to military history, John Keegan reverses the usual convention of writing about war in terms of generals and nations in conflict, which tends to leave the common soldier as cipher. Instead, he focuses on what a set battle is like for the man in the thick of it.
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Amazing! But probably better in print.
- By D. Martin on 04-20-13
By: John Keegan
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Snow & Steel
- The Battle of the Bulge 1944-45
- By: Peter Caddick-Adams
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Tim Reynolds
- Length: 31 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Between December 16, 1944 and January 15, 1945, American forces found themselves entrenched in the heavily forested Ardennes region of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg defending against an advancing German army amid freezing temperatures, deep snow, and dense fog. Operation Herbstnebel - Autumn Mist - was a massive German counter-offensive that stunned the Allies in its scope and intensity.
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fascinating and thorough, painful narration
- By richard on 01-05-15
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Vietnam
- The Australian War
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Peter Byrne
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.
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Fascinating detailed account
- By Alan T Alcock on 04-21-09
By: Paul Ham
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The Great Gamble
- The Soviet War in Afghanistan
- By: Gregory Feifer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior number with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.
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Correction
- By Alyssa B. Goss on 11-22-09
By: Gregory Feifer
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My Fellow Soldiers
- General John Pershing and the Americans Who Helped Win the Great War
- By: Andrew Carroll
- Narrated by: Andrew Carroll
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrew Carroll's intimate portrait of General Pershing, who led all of the American troops in Europe during World War I, is a revelation. Given a military force that on the eve of its entry into the war was downright primitive compared to the European combatants, the general surmounted enormous obstacles to build an army and ultimately command millions of US soldiers. But Pershing himself - often perceived as a harsh, humorless, and wooden leader - concealed inner agony from those around him.
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Don’t pass this up
- By PineappleSmoothy on 03-29-18
By: Andrew Carroll
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The Generals
- Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, and the Winning of World War II
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Celebrated historian Winston Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall - from the World War I battle that shaped them to their greatest achievement: leading the allies to victory in World War II.
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Nothing new here
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-13-16
By: Winston Groom
What listeners say about The Gun
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Austin
- 03-30-20
Good book, questionable narrator
Prichard is fine, but he REALLY didn't need to do a very stereotypical native American affectation or any of the other accents he tries
The book itself is good but that is just...not necessary
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- Roger R.
- 12-31-20
great history or automatic firearms development
From Gatling to AK-47 and the M-16 this book covers the development of automatic firearms very well.
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- Carroll
- 09-08-11
A thorough work
Alot of material, but well organized & referenced. A useful overview of machine guns.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robert
- 09-17-19
Brilliant history of the Kalashnikov
Michael Pritchard adds dimension to a brilliant history of automatic weapons from the 1860s and the Gatling gun, the later Maxim, the venerable Tommy Gun, and automatic wrappings development through two world wars and the subsequent proxy wars between the US and the Soviet Union.
The latter wars and continuing development of light automatic arms then takes the bulk of the discussion, following the AK47 and its incredible proliferation through the decades. Any arms enthusiasts will enjoy this history. Yes, the growing pains of the Armalite AR15 known by the military variant, the M16, is also discussed.
I would have liked more about the American side of this history, but the author had to narrow the topic a bit, following the history of the Kalashnikov in greater detail as the most produced automatic weapon in history. Overall, you won't be disappointed.
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- Corruptgarage
- 07-23-16
Must read for AK enthusiasts and history buffs
What made the experience of listening to The Gun the most enjoyable?
The story and the narrator.
Any additional comments?
Overall, the book is excellent. I waited until after reading (listening to) the book to read about the author as not try to project my ideas about his background onto his words, and take them for face value. The book covers some major milestones in the history of firearms, leading up to the beginning of the automatic rifle changing the way battles were fought and the struggles that world armed forces faced in initial design, implementation, and production of the weapons as well as how tactics changed before and after it's widespread use. Throughout the book the author comes back and forth to the AK, often used as juxtaposition for the topic of the chapter at hand. The AK is definitely the main topic of the book, and the middle and much of the end deal with the Soviet Union's history and policy on weapons, a brief biography of Kalashnikov, the initial design and production of the weapon, and how it was distributed or authorized for manufacture (or not) by other comblock countries. It makes mention of all of the well known factories like Tula, Izshmash, Radom, Circle 10 and others.
One section I found incredibly interesting was a brief section on how the US dropped the ball in it's failure to keep up with the rest of the world in weapons design and why they made the choices they did leading up to the mid 20th century. It also deals with the initial development, testing, and backroom deals which led to the military's adoption of what would be the M-16, and the disaster that followed its debut in Vietnam. The testing section blew me away with some of the questionable and outright horrific details of the US military's "testing" of the AR-15, and I honestly can't help but hate the thing more now than I did prior to reading the book.
After finishing the book I felt the author was very knowledgeable and well versed in military tactics and policies, but felt by some of his passages that he was somewhat "anti-gun" in respect to private ownership, though in fair he explicitly says in the preface that the book would not take on the subject of the AK or semi or fully auto weapons and their place in US citizens' hands. He does however lament on what it seems he feels is an overall negative contribution the AK has made on the globe. He also seems to paint Kalashnikov himself in a very negative light, and portrays him as both a victim of the soviet union's ruthless policies, and a pathetic manufactured personality cult by the same people who sought to destroy his family. He does this all while making serious implications about the actual contributions General Kalashnikov made in his namesake firearm.
All in all, it's a great read (or listen), and actually has had me doing a little more digging and reading on various subjects of which my interest was triggered during and after reading. Recommended for AK guys who also like reading about history and politics both.
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- T
- 12-31-13
Really Enlightening
What did you love best about The Gun?
I thought this would be a much more technical book. I really appreciated how Chivers has incorporated history and consequences into the narrative.
If you’ve listened to books by C. J. Chivers before, how does this one compare?
This is my first book by Chivers. but he is on my list now.
Would you listen to another book narrated by Michael Prichard?
Yes. I appreciated his voice, and he did his best to make Scholastic material as interesting as possible. Unfortunately, he still ended up sound a little professorial.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Extreme is not how I would describe my experience. Informative and entertaining, and from time to time I chuckled or empathized, but I never laughed out loud or cried.
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- Matthew
- 12-27-13
The AK-47, ubiquitous but obscure, is explained
I'm no expert on guns but this is a fascinating work on the history of an important technology, from the Civil War through post-Vietnam. It's full of delicious detail and a great listen.
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- R ob
- 07-30-24
the rigor
this was a very informative book, while being wildly entertaining as well. This book is what any movie based on the material should be, and I don't believe there should be a movie.
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- Laura
- 09-02-11
Good Historical Account of AK-47
I couldn't stop listening to this book. The Gun is about the AK-47 but it covers much more, starting with the first machine guns and how they were used and/or misused by the world's armies when first introduced on the battlefield. All this leads up to the development and deployment of the AK-47. Of particular interest is the section on the Vietnam war, how the North Vietnamese with the AK-47 outgunned the US with their new M16 and the politics that followed. An absolutely fascinating history, I plan to listen to this again in the near future.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Christopher
- 02-09-17
Entertaining history of the AK47 series
Thoroughly enjoyed it but the fake accents were annoying and it could have been edited down a bit. Still very good and worthwhile.
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1 person found this helpful