|
Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It
|
List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $17.13
Your Save: $ 8.82 ( 34% )
Recent Price Activity
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
 *Eligible orders over $25 ship free
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.4424
EAN: 9780670018949
ISBN: 0670018945
Label: Viking Adult
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2008-05-29
Publisher: Viking Adult
Studio: Viking Adult
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
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.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great subject not given the treatment it deserved
Comment: In 1862, with the American Civil War deepening, and showing signs of becoming a long and bloody maelstrom, Indiana businessman and inventor Richard Jordan Gatling came up with a weapon that was so terrible that he believed that it would end large drawn-out wars. However, the Gatling gun accomplished no such thing - it did indeed help to make wars more bloody and horrific, but it did nothing to end them. This is the history of Mr. Gatling's invention, and the rise of America's power, and the terrible costs of war.
OK, where do I start? The title of this book really caught my eye, and I had high hopes for it when I picked it up. Sadly, those high hopes were not realized. I found the narrative of the story to be badly out of focus, with the author spending considerable time expressing her opinions on weapons and so forth, and analyzing this, that, and the other thing. Before long, you begin to wonder if the book is really about anything in particular at all.
So, let me agree with those who say that Ms. Keller picked a great subject, but did not succeed in giving it the treatment it deserved. I definitely recommend against this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Technically Lacking
Comment: Author Keller's inability to provide actual details about the subject Gatling Gun is only exceeded by her lack of technical knowlege of firearms. Though the book has limited historical information of the 19th Century Industrial age, it is titled and sold as an accounting of the subject weapon. There are only scant descriptions of the actual workings of the machine gun and no details of the materials, methods of manufacture and use of the "Marvel."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ms. Keller's Terrible History
Comment: There are sundry problems with this book. It didn't hold my attention, and it took me weeks to finally be able to finish it off, instead of a couple days. As mentioned in the Washington Post review, she makes many sweeping statements without supporting them, which could be fine in a human interest story in the paper, but not for a history book. She also has issues with incorrect technical concepts, such as distinguishing between bullets and cartridges, or explaining gas or recoil operated mechanisms (which actually aren't decendants of Gatling's invention). For some reason, she changed the famous quote to Maxim about how to make a fortune from "fool Europeans" to "[them]" -- it's as ridiculous as quoting the Gettysburg Address as "[Some] years ago..." Not only does it lack the pizazz of the original quote, but it removes some of the historical context.
The biggest issue I have is with the format of the book. The amount of information about Gatling himself and his process of invention would perhaps fill one chapter. The rest of the book is filled with tangents and non-sequiturs. I didn't count the lines, but it seemed that she mentioned Gatling moving to Missouri and then spend more time talking about Mark Twain, whose only link that she makes is that they both had lived there at some point in their lives. She seems to be trying to make each chapter have a theme, but it only really congeals for the chapters about patents and legacy, which are the introduction and conclusion. The chapter themes don't have a cohesive, progressive relationship. There isn't a chronological ordering of events, and she'll bounce back and forth through time for decades outside of Gatling's lifetime. She also repeats the same facts multiple times -- Gatling's family, his intend to reduce misery of war, Abe Lincoln invented a way to get steamboats off of sand bars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Term paper time
Comment: Did 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 name, that he moved to St Louis and that he got smallpox. That's it for a whole book.
There's lots of sociological waffle about mid nineteenth American territorial and technical development. A lot of talk about how the Civil war was relevant. But there's close to zilch on what is supposed to be the subject of this book - the man and his gun.
I want my money back.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ms. Keller's Bad Book
Comment: I 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
