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Books : Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented ItIn association with Amazon.comby: Julia Keller  List Price: $25.95 Amazon.com's Price: $17.13 You Save: $8.82 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 623.4424 EAN: 9780670018949 ISBN: 0670018945 Label: Viking Adult Manufacturer: Viking Adult Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 304 Publication Date: May 29, 2008 Publisher: Viking Adult Studio: Viking Adult Sales Rank: 50926 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: A Pulitzer Prize winner explores the role of the first machine gun in transforming America into a superpower Although it was little used during the American Civil War—the time in which it was invented—the Gatling gun soon changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging two hundred shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world’s first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America’s overseas interests. Its inventor, Richard Gatling, was famous in his own time for creating and improving many industrial designs, from bicycles and steamship propellers to flush toilets. A man of great business and scientific acumen, Gatling actually proposed his gun as a way of saving lives, thinking it would decrease the size of armies and, therefore, make it easier to supply soldiers and reduce malnutrition deaths. The scientists who unleashed America’s atomic arsenal less than a century later would see it much the same way. In Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, Julia Keller offers a riveting account of the Gatling gun’s invention, its misunderstood creator, and its tremendous impact on American and world events. She also shows how the gun, in its combination of ingenuity, idealism, and destructive power, perfectly exemplified the paradox of America’s rise as a world superpower. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Term paper timeDid you ever have to write a term paper on something you knew NOTHING about? You'd repeat the title, rearrange it and the repeat it again and then add in irrelevant asides, anything to generate words in a futile attempt to cover up the fact that you had NOTHING to say about the subject. This book is one of those term papers. "More than a biography" says one of the "top reviewers". How about "where's the biography"? About the only things I learned about Gatling was his ... Read More Rating:  - Ms. Keller's Bad BookI bought this book assuming that it it was a biography revealing details of how Gatling's life developed to lead him toward his many accomplishments. it is not; rather it is nine tenths sociological asides. There errors of fact misunderstandings of analysis, poor and inadequate illustrations and in general was a disappointing and frustrating read. I did read it but not happily. Rating:  - An Inventor's Place in American HistoryAmericans have affection for the inventor, the fellow that builds a better mousetrap or even just tinkers away in the basement attempting to make cold fusion happen. But we are nowadays conflicted about armaments; whoever that guy was who invented napalm we might not hold in much esteem. What are we to make of the man who invented the machine gun? He wrote in 1877, "It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could, by rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle ... Read More Rating:  - GatlingThe book should have contained pictures of how the invention actually worked. Diagrams would have been helpful in order to understand why this gun worked and why it worked so efficiently. Rating: - "America at its muscular, can-do best..."?One of the merits (and there are many) of Julia Keller's Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel is that the book is more than a biography of Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903), inventor of the automatic weapon which bears his name. It's also a well-written, well-researched, and insightful reflection on American self-identity and the icons by which we define ourselves. We think of ourselves as humanitarian, ingenious, curious, mechanically skillful, industrious, problem-solving, determined, and ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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