Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It

Authors: Keller, Julia
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
BISAC/Subject: HIS036040, TEC057000, HIS027080
ISBN: 9781440633591, Related ISBNs: 0143115642, 0670018945, 1440633592, 9780143115649, 9780670018949
Classification: Non-Fiction
Number of pages: 320,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis: A provocative look at the life and times of the man who created the original weapon of mass destruction

Drawing on her investigative and literary talents, Julia Keller offers a riveting account of the invention of the world's first working machine gun. Through her portrait of its misunderstood creator, Richard Jordan Gatling-who naively hoped that the overwhelming effectiveness of a multiple-firing weapon would save lives by decreasing the size of armies and reducing the number of soldiers needed to fight-Keller draws profound parallels to the scientists who would unleash America's atomic arsenal half a century later. The Gatling gun, in its combination of ingenuity, idealism, and destructive power, perfectly exemplifies the paradox of America's rise in the nineteenth century to a world superpower.
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