By Robert L. O'Connell
As Robert L. OConnell finds during this vividly written background of guns in Western tradition, that first try at an hands regulate degree characterizes the complicated and sometimes paradoxical dating among males and hands during the centuries. In a sweeping narrative that levels from prehistoric occasions to the nuclear age, OConnell demonstrates how social and financial stipulations ensure the categories of guns and the strategies utilized in struggle and the way, in flip, suggestions in guns know-how frequently undercut social values. He describes, for example, how the discovery of the gun required a redefinition of braveness from competitive ferocity to calmness less than hearth and the way the laptop gun in international conflict I so overthrew conventional notions of wrestle that Lord Kitchener exclaimed, «This isnt war!» The expertise unleashed in the course of the nice struggle notably altered our perceptions of ourselves, as those new guns made human features virtually inappropriate in strive against. With the discovery of the atomic bomb, humanity itself grew to become subservient to the guns it had produced.
Of hands and males brilliantly integrates the evolution of politics, guns, procedure, and strategies right into a coherent narrative, one spiced with impressive photographs of fellows in strive against and penetrating insights into why males visit battle.
Read or Download Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression PDF
Similar conventional books
M551 Sheridan: US Airmobile Tanks 1941-2001
One of many weaknesses of airmobile forces has consistently been their vulnerability to enemy armor. because the Forties, there were quite a few schemes to box mild tanks which may be deployed through parachute or different tips on how to strengthen paratroopers and different airmobile forces. This booklet tells the tale of the USA event with airmobile tanks, beginning with efforts in international battle II, significantly the M22 Locust airmobile tank.
Radiation Inactivation Of Bioterrorism Agents
Using and difficulties linked to organic guns were of shock to NATO and non-NATO army businesses for a few years. until eventually lately, many of the available literature addressed the army concerns linked to the potential use of organic guns at the battlefield, the clinical results of a few of the brokers, and what was once identified approximately scientific prophylaxis and coverings.
American Tanks and AFVs of World War II
Stuart, Sherman, Lee, and provide tanks ruled the U.S. military and Marine Corps armored battle attempt as opposed to Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan. This ebook info the complete variety of those automobiles, giving technical requisites and improvement gains in addition to describing how they have been manned and fought in conflict.
- McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
- Breath of the Dragon: Homebuilt Flamethrowers
- The .22 Machine Pistol (Home Workshop Guns for Defense and Resistance)
- Expedient Homemade Firearms - The 9Mm Submachine Gun
- German Night Fighter Aces of World War 2 (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces No 20)
Additional info for Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression
Sample text
It is our heritage. It should not be overlooked. But ultimately weapons are about man, not animals. Though they may not be alien to the world of nature, they are primarily our own creation and our own dilemma. We must look to ourselves for answers. To do this, however, requires that we go to the source of the problem, that we approach as nearly as possible the point at which man first picked up a rock or stick with malicious intent. It is here, if anywhere, that the basic proposition should be most clearly outlined.
3 Women and revenge, the traditional motivators, presumably still played a role in these depredations, but it was this new factor, property, which provided the impetus that had been missing previously. Although this dynamic—the nomadic outlander periodically sweeping down upon the sedentary agrarian—would remain a major theme in the history of aggression until at least the time of Genghis Khan, it was the agriculturalist response that would provide the major substance for our warlike past. 4 Having suffered at the hands of the interloper, agrarian communities gradually learned to defend themselves.
In both cases the greatest rewards and dangers were to be found at close range, where the virtues of courage and cooperation were most severely tested. It was natural, therefore, that the weapons appropriate for fighting at such distances—the spear, the sword, the ax, and the dagger—tended to take on the prestige associated with physical bravery. But it was more than just a matter of status and weapons. The manifest lethality of the Sumerian phalanx and its successors indicated that the outlook of the hunt, with its casual ruthlessness and willingness to kill without mercy, had now become imprinted on warfare, allowing men to commit acts of mass violence unprecedented except in the broken bodies of a herd of mastodons run off a cliff.