American Rifle by Alexander Rose
January 19th, 2009Title: American Rife
Author: Alexander Rose
Publisher: Delacorte Press (2008)
This was a very cool book. I’m not typically a big gun guy…I’ve only shot a real gun once…but I do like military history and biographies. So it would make sense for American Rife: A Biography by Alexander Rose to be a good book for me to read!
This book is exactly what you would think it is…a biography of the rifle and its use throughout American history. Naturally a lot of the focus is on the rifle’s usage in the military…but the book does go a lot into how the rifle was used in other manners (like The NRA and American-Indians). The rifle has gone through A LOT of changes since its birth in, surprisingly, the mid 1400′s. The most popular gun to use in battle was the smoothbore musket. The obvious difference between the musket and the rifle is…the rifling. Rifling is a series of grooves that are cut on the inside of the barrel which imparts a spin to the projectile. A spiriling bullet will travel further than a rounded bullet of the same size (think of throwing a football compared to a basketball). (Yes…I understand they are different because basketballs are bigger…but pretend the basketball is the same size as the football and weighs the same. Please just go with me on this one).
American Rifle takes you through years of military usage from the Springfield rifles through the debate on repeaters vs single shot rifles through the M1 Garand (the rifle of choice in WWII) through modern day composite super rifles. Rose does an excellent job of not being boring, as I imagine a book like this could be. There were only few times where I found myself skimming a section due to lack of interest. The sections during the Civil War were especially of interest to me. Also interesting was the way that debates on how a rifle should be built and used continue throughout the entire book. I guess even though there is always new awesome technology out there, there will always be people who just want to keep things the way they were.
If you are into military history or guns…this is a must read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
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January 20th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hmm, this sounds like a great book to give my brother who is in ROTC in college. Thanks for the review!
April 8th, 2009 at 6:05 am
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