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 enlarge | Author: Julia Keller
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.66
You Save: $10.29 (40%)
New (30) from $15.66
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 46258
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0670018945
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.4424
EAN: 9780670018949
ASIN: 0670018945
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080904214033T
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-7 of 7 | | « PREV | | |
 Fantastic Read!! June 5, 2008
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
Brilliant cultural study of the 19th century through the lens of weapons inventions and innovations. Keller places the Gatling Gun smack in the middle of Americas growth and westward expansion. She explores the contradictions of Gatling's life and the contradictions in Americas view of itself. From steam boats to small pox to agricultural inventions to the first "machine" gun we travel with Richard Gatling through the great American experience
Keller explores the importance of the American patent system and patent office, to America's rise and economic expansion. She really puts her finger on the pulse of this country in the 19th century.
Packed full of great history, well paced, and a joy to read.
 great subject, disappointing treatment June 3, 2008
20 out of 25 found this review helpful
I have three problems with this book. 1) Ms Keller takes us off on a survey of 19th century America instead of concentrating on Richard Gatling. What did John Sutter have to do with the Gatling gun? Well, nothing, but she drags him in by the heels nevertheless. The entire first half of the book is given over to these digressions.
2) She doesn't like firearms--a disabling qualification in somebody who sets out to write the biography of the first successful rapid-fire gun. "The fact that arms are necessary to a nation's survival is a grubby and uncomfortable truth." Uncomfortable to Ms Keller, no doubt, but not to those of us who have used firearms for hunting, for target shooting, and during our military service.
3) She is so enthused by Richard Gatling (though not his gun as an enforcer of government policy!) that she shades the facts. To read her book, you'd conclude that the machine-gun problem was solved by Gatling in 1862 instead of by Hiram Maxim twenty years later--that the single-barrel, auto-loading, auto-firing machine guns of World War One were just minor improvements on Gatling's design. Tain't so.
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