Ak-47: the Story of a Gun [Hardcover]

Michael Hodges (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2008

In the sixty years since General Kalashnikov created the AK's distinctive silhouette, the gun has been at the centre of conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The weapon that made him a 'Hero of the Soviet Union' has also appeared on t-shirts and vodka bottles, featured in videos and song lyrics and been re-fashioned in crystal - a gift from Putin to George W. Bush. Power, politics and passion combine in the story of a weapon that has shaped the modern world. Using testimonies of people who have experienced the gun at first-hand - including a Sudanese child soldier, a Vietcong veteran, and Yorkshire student - Michael Hodges provides a compelling account of how the AK47 became an icon that ranks alongside Coca-Cola as one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Invented by Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1947, the AK47 assault rifle was adopted by the Soviet army, subsequently became "the icon of Third World revolution," and now serves as "the brand leader for international terrorism." In a lively but chilling investigative history, British journalist Hodges examines the legacy of the "most ubiquitous gun in the world." With only eight moving parts, the semi-automatic is cheap, durable and simple to operate, providing 650 rounds-per-minute firepower with minimal training. Communist China supplied them to the North Vietnamese in 1963, where they were better suited for jungle fighting than the U.S. Army's M16; that conflict cemented the AK47's reputation as "the 'anti-imperialist gun,'" a symbol now evoked by Osama bin Laden, who never appears on-camera without one. Today it arms Palestinian resistance fighters and child soldiers in Sudan, as well as schoolyard shooters in the U.S. and Rambo at the movies -a lot to cover, but Hodges knows how to keep his thorough, eye-opening narrative moving, even as he hopscotches to nearly every conflict zone of the past 60 years. Though not for the feint of heart, this pop-history page-turner should appeal to anyone interested in military history or international conflict.
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About the Author

Michael Hodges is a journalist from the UK who has reported extensively from the Middle East

Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: MacAdam / Cage; 1St Edition edition (April 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596922869
• ISBN-13: 978-1596922860
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,102,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This is one of those books which recounts the history of a small part of the world, and attempts to put this part of everything, April 7, 2008

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ak-47: the Story of a Gun (Hardcover)

This is one of those books which recounts the history of a small part of the world, and attempts to put this part of everything in context of everything else. This sort of history can work very well, and it can also lead to an exaggerated view of the significance of the item in question. While this book is generally good, the author sometimes makes the mistake of thinking that the AK-47 is the most important weapon in the world, and unstoppable.

The author begins with a fascinating chapter detailing the invention of the weapon at the end of the Second World War. There are a few pages of interview with the inventor himself, Mikhail Kalashnikov, then the author moves right on to recounting a few places where the gun has been used over the intervening sixty years.

While the author presents an interesting story, if you take this as the only book you read on warfare in the postwar world you'll learn that the AK-47 (pretty much by itself) defeated the U.S. in Viet Nam, has torn Africa to pieces, is defeating the U.S. in Iraq, and has turned America's inner cities into a nightmarish war zone. While some of this may be partially true, none of it is exactly correct, and some of it is just wide of the mark. We haven't been defeated in Iraq, yet, for one thing.

I found parts of this book fascinating, and other parts only OK. I would recommend it as light reading for someone with a military bent: others might find it a bit unreliable.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Long on histrionics, short on substance, April 5, 2009

By 

Richard Davis "[e-mail]" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ak-47: the Story of a Gun (Hardcover)

As a former writer, I really don't like giving negative reviews, especially on books. Writing & editing is a lot of work, and that's only the final stages.

I saw this book in our local library, expecting it to be rich in details. What I found was one quick chapter reviewing the well-known history of the Kalashnikov. The remainder of the book was chapter after chapter of emotion-filled stories dancing in the blood of war victims and blaming the tool. Guns are a side-effect of technology, and can be misused like anything else (especially publications).

I was left with the impression this book was written specifically to foster negative impressions toward the Kalashnikov. There was absolutely no mention of legal, lawful use of Kalashnikov rifles whatsoever. The author even admits "Kalashnikovs doing good work doesn't sell newspapers or rock CDs" (ref: end of Chap. 5). For people who lack or ignore critical thinking skills and are inclined to blame guns, this book is for you.

The title is misleading, as this book focuses more on the social effect of the Kalashnikov, not the gun itself.

I was also a little concerned about the undue attention given to revolutionaries and guerrillas that use the AK rifle. At times it seemed like it was thinly veiled propaganda for the Palestinian cause, Hamas, et al.

I also noticed traces of British in the author's writing style. I'm not an Anglophobe, but I do take British gun writing skills with a pound or two of salt. They're under tight censorship as far as minute details of weapons, machine guns in particular. Further, most Britons lack access to military small arms, limiting their personal experience. This book reflects this. As such, this book contains numerous technical errors. It also doesn't seem to differentiate between semi-automatic and machine gun, which has a profound legal implications particularly in the US. It almost seemed like at times the author didn't even care.

As a former Eastern-bloc small arms subject matter resource, I was profoundly disappointed with the almost complete lack of development detail, and no mention of progression, model variation and modernization.

Pros:

Still working on the first entry here...

Cons:

Short on facts, details. Long on emotion and fanciful stories.

Most of the book vacillates between stories of suffering, misuse, terror and alternately glorifying the Kalashnikov's mechanical appearance.

Nothing new in the (very) truncated historical details.

No mention of legitimate & legal use (i.e., recreational).

I recommend checking this book out of your local library before buying it. Larry Kahaner's book is much better, I recommend Mr. Kahaner's treatise, it's available here on Amazon and cheaper when purchased used.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mostly drivel, January 2, 2009

By 

A Johnson "Garden Perennial" (Snohomish, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ak-47: the Story of a Gun (Hardcover)

This book offers a brief, mildly interesting history of the AK-47 and its creator, but that occupies only about 15% of the book.

The rest consists of anecdotes (some, at least, obviously fictionalized) from various violence-ravaged regions of the world, almost all with a tendentiously leftist and anti-American slant, all loosely linked by the presence in the conflict of the AK-47. If we are to believe the author, it is that presence which causes the conflict, a confusion of cause and effect that would blame the Rwandan genocide on machetes, the Holocaust on barbed wire, railroads and exhaust fumes, and 9-11 on the Boeing Company.

If one were to read this book with no historical knowledge, one would finish it convinced that, before the invention of the AK-47, centuries of human existence had been free from violent conflict. Sudanese slavetraders' attacks on villages, according to Hodges, are brought by the "cackle" of Kalashnikovs and the "thrum" of helicopter rotors, not by bad men or bad ideas. Where (rarely) blame attaches to any human agency, it always seems to shift away from the obvious perpetrators (the Chechen terrorists at Beslan, the Palestinian terrorists at Munich) to the incompetence of the rescuers or bystanders.

By characterizing the book as poorly written, I mean no criticism of its proofreader or of the author's basic literacy. The author can put words together well. The words he chooses, however, are cloyingly tabloid-like. His descriptions of events that are more than dramatic enough in themselves, such as the school massacre in Beslan, suffer from his need to dramatize them even further and milk them for every last emotional appeal.

Finally, aside from the presence of AK-47s in each of the conflicts he describes (and in the hands of everyone to whom he turns his attention), and his apparent admiration for or at best neutrality toward any group that aligns itself against the West, there is little to hold the various stories together. Many characters people his tales, but none are developed as anything other than props.

This book serves as neither an adequate history of the AK-47 nor as a particularly informative exploration of world hotspots. Unless you merely want to reinforce some pre-existing views (guns-bad, America-bad, Israel-bad, Africans-pawns, Palestinians-children, etc.), don't waste your money.