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George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized.
Now, in this first-of-its-kind book, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle. Drawing on the words of soldiers, inventors, and presidents, based on extensive new research, and encompassing the Revolution to the present day, American Rifle is a balanced, wonderfully entertaining history of this most essential firearm and its place in American culture.
In the eighteenth century American soldiers discovered that they no longer had to fight in Europe’s time-honored way. With the evolution of the famed “Kentucky” Rifle—a weapon slow to load but devastatingly accurate in the hands of a master—a new era of warfare dawned, heralding the birth of the American individualist in battle.
In this spirited narrative, Alexander Rose reveals the hidden connections between the rifle’s development and our nation’s history. We witness the high-stakes international competition to produce the most potent gunpowder . . . how the mysterious arts of metallurgy, gunsmithing, and mass production played vital roles in the creation of American economic supremacy . . . and the ways in which bitter infighting between rival arms makers shaped diplomacy and influenced the most momentous decisions in American history. And we learn why advances in rifle technology and ammunition triggered revolutions in military tactics, how ballistics tests—frequently bizarre—were secretly conducted, and which firearms determined the course of entire wars.
From physics to geopolitics, from frontiersmen to the birth of the National Rifle Association, from the battles of the Revolution to the war in Iraq, American Rifle is a must read for history buffs, gun collectors, soldiers—and anyone who seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between the rifle and this nation’s history.
"Fascinating…. The history of the U.S. is mirrored in the history of one of it technological achievements…. Loaded with detail, full of lively characters and an abundant spirit of invention. The history of the rifle is also the history of mass production, of American politics, of the legal system, and of war itself." - Booklist.
"In his entertaining history, Rose engagingly chronicles Americans' peculiar quest to build a more refined and effective firearm." - Publishers Weekly.
"Recommended for most libraries, this will find readers among historians, militarists, gun enthusiasts, and Americana buffs." - Library Journal.
"Starred Review. A nuts-and-bolts description of American firearms development that provides surprising insight into the country's history." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about American Rifle was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born in the United States, Alexander Rose was raised in Australia and Britain, worked in Canada, but now lives in New York. For several years he was a journalist but went into the military history business around the time his first book, Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, appeared. It's since been used as the basis for the AMC drama series, Turn: Washington's Spies.
Alex currently works as a producer/writer for the second season of the show, reviews the odd book for the newspapers, cranks out the occasional article for various magazines, and finishing his next book, Men of War: The American Experience of Battle at Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima
Visit Alex at http://www.alexrose.com/
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