Customer Reviews

Ak-47: the Story of a Gun

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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.

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.

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.

The book was good as far as it went. It should have contained pictures of all the different models since 1947. It should have pictures of the 8 pieces that make the gun so efficient, effective and simple. I had to download information off the net to figure things out. I got kind of tired of the different stories.

I preferred the book "The Gun That Changed the World" by Miklail Kalashnikov and Elena Jolly on the history of the gun and bio on Kalishnakov himself. This book is more the story of the proliferation of the use of the gun since WW II: Korea, Viet Nam, revolutions, terrorists etc. I was more interested in the how Kalishnikov perfected the gun and why it was so superior to other countries auto rifles. I got bored with Hodges version of history.

I've never bothered to review anything before but I found this book so bad that I decided I would take the time to warn others. While the beginning of the book is quite interesting in regards to the creation of the AK-47, the rest of the book devolves into overly detailed accounts of improbable stories that treat the AK as though it had a will of it's own. The author veers wildly from an almost drooling admiration of the weapon to condemning its creation as the match that burned down the world. Oversimplification abounds in this book... and while I agree with the author's criticism of US foreign policy over the last several decades, I take great insult over his depiction of the average American gun owner as a fat, beer swilling redneck who should not be allowed to own an assault rifle. The one thing people on either side of the gun ownership fence should be able to agree upon is that neither of the words 'hunting' or 'sporting' are found in the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution... but that's another topic for another time.

Between the over use of the word 'ubiquitous' (which is quite the unintentional pun now that I think about it),the author's confusing writing regarding 'semi-auto' and 'full auto' firing, unnecessarily detailed geography explanations and fictionalized accounts of marginalized events, this book is a must pass for those looking for more of an objective history of the weapon.

If i could give 1/2 a star i would, as it doesn't rate 1 star. I picked this up at Barnes Noble in the bargain book area for 6 bucks. I read the first few pages of the first chapter and it seemed pretty interesting, as it was about Mikhail Kalashnikov, WW2, and the initial development of the rifle. After the first chapter the book pretty much falls apart into a twisted trip through history according to the author's view on world affairs. I own 6 AK47's, I enjoy military history reading and own many titles, I've even been to Russia several times only an hour's drive from where Mikhail Kalashnikov lived, and all i can say is....THIS BOOK SUCKS.

My son brought it home from the library, thinking he would learn something about the AK47. After I read it, we spent time talking about how an author can take an item, and write a story around it as he sees it, leaving one to think that the AK47 has a mind of it's own, and is evil incarnate. I do not know if he was misleading on purpose, or just has virtually no knowledge of guns. While it does start out well with an interview with the inventor as well as a trip through the factory, it just collapsed in on itself after that. He does have a character in the book named "Pierre", who is obsessive to the point of being a freak about the AK47, it seems that this may describe the author more than his "friend". A single page that describes the AK47 in one name or another 7 or more times is common. "Kalashnikov gunners", "Kalashnikov Culture" "Kalashnikov Gangs" , "Kalashnikov Kids", American inner city crack dealers with "AKs blazing" and firing in "bursts". One also learns that drug dealers run around with AK47s due to the intimidation factor, apparently carrying them in the open to intimidate with the silhouette of the AK47. This probably explains how he claims one major American city police dept. deals with drug dealers. They just use snipers to shoot drug dealers, as they are unable to control them, (page 201). Really? While that may solve some problems, no one, much less a whole police dept. would or could ever do such a thing, much less get away with it.

Please bear in mind, I am a blue collar firefighter/paramedic, not a writer, and I read a lot, and this is my first review, mostly because I was so taken aback.
While I did honestly enjoy the first chapter or two, the book turned anti-gun, anti-American soon after. He portrayed the AK47 as having mythical powers to destroy flesh and culture as a person who has no hands on experience with firearms would. In short, he appears clueless to firearms, over and over. I have owned a civilian semi-automatic AK derivative, and it was not that great of a weapon. It was a lot like an old GMC Truck. Lots of them out there, and it is not that special, and it is easy to find something better made and more refined, but it always worked. I sold it in less than a year, I don't miss it, and I have something better now.

I finished reading the book partly to see how bad it got, and it was pretty bad on facts, But don't get me wrong, Mr. Hodges can write very well, but there was no shortage of the type of sensationalism you would find in someone from England that has not been around guns, is scared of guns, or are simply awed by them. But if read by someone with a basic knowledge of firearms, ammunition and ballistics, the book was almost comical. I found that Mr. Hodges gets almost a bit unbalanced in a way, describing the AK47, something kind of disturbing, as if he likes it a bit too much. But it could be a simple lack of knowledge of weapons. He certainly demonstrates his lack of knowledge of American culture when it comes to "gun clubs", stating that you "show up, drink a few beers and go shoot AKs". That would get you kicked out of any gun club that I know of, (and I know a lot of them), probably permanently. To sum it up, it reads as if he did his firearms research in his pajamas playing HALO. The author should stick with tea and subjects he knows about, as he got his American "gun culture" from Hollywood. Save yourself the time and money. If you must, get it from the library.

This book makes the author and the publisher look like they don't know anything in the world. It's just like that other that came out, Mr. Gatling and his terrible marvel. Their just spine less books by leftist authors about how firearms are the source of all the world's problems and we are in a huge predicament just because Gatling and Kalashnikov had their inventions and now they are a "threat" to "world peace". All of it is hog wash. Everything in here is about how UN people are suffering from this gun and how rebels can now take over whatever with it. So far from the truth. The inventions and productions in firearms design and operation that even if Kalashnikov had NEVER been born, there would have been something like the AK47 or AKM developed in Post War Russia. I mean seriously, the cartridge was there, the intermediate 7.62x39mm had been looking for a good rifle to use it in since the SKS. The need for a selective fire intermediate rifle accourate out to 300-500 yards was already in place. The Russians already had captured various models of the German STG44 so they even had something to start from. Thirdly, automatic rifle development had already been going on for a long time with the Fedorev, the Tokarov, the Simov, the PPSH, the SKS. And finally the fact that Kalashnikov made it so simple doesn't mean anything. The Russian Army has ALWAYS used simple main battle firearms. I mean how much more simple and robust can you get than the PPSH? the T33? the century old Maxim design? the Mosin Nagant m1891? It doesn't matter what other design or anything that would have filled the AK's place it would be relatively the same as the AK is because of these simple requirements. And it would have been just as easily distributed as the 80 million AKs now today. Buy this book if you want to feel good about the completely useless UN and other anti Second Amendment organizations but if you were looking for a reference on the AKM series of battle rifles then look elsewhere. The Collector's Only has a good book.