The Gun

Great read. A well researched & written history of automatic weapons in general and the AK-47 (and derivatives) specifically: Origins, development, proliferation, and impact.

A rather lengthy side trip into the M-16 as well.

From the book, “The weapon, which Kalashnikov emphasizes as a defensive tool and a shared monument to the population’s creative energy, was rather a marker of the planned economy under totalitarian rule, a nation that could make weapons aplenty but would not design a good toilet, elevator, or camera, or produce large crops of wheat and potatoes, or provide its citizens with decent toothpaste and bars of soap.”