Ak-47: The Weapon That Changed the Face of War

As someone who has no pro-gun or anti-gun ax to grind but simply wanted to read and enjoy an historical perspective of this weapon, the book is fascinating. All of the negative reviews say the book is anti-gun which it is not. They think everything except their own narrow viewpoint is anti-gun and they do this book a disservice by keeping other readers away. To be sure, the book is not pro-gun either, although some may argue it glorifies the AK-47. It does not. If you're unsure, read all the reviews and you'll see that some people understand what a great book this is. Or buy it and make up your own mind. Kahaner has done a masterful job of outlining the history of the AK-47. This is not a nuts and bolts book about how the AK-47 works. This is a book about the historical impact the weapon has made on society and how it has shaped our world today.

The book "AK-47: The Weapon That Changed The Face Of War" is a great reading experience even if you do not care a wit about guns or weapons. I thought this was going to be a book about a gun--which it is--but it is so much more than that. Author Larry Kahaner has put together a history book that puts into focus the impact and the importance of this single invention of destruction. The Ak-47 has killed more people than the Atomic bombs we dropped on Japan. It has changed the face of the geo-political world like no other weapon has ever done before. The book is as much fun to read as a novel. Kahaner crafts a well told story using both history and people to weave a portrait of how this automatic rifle has spread around the world from conflicts in Africa and Asia to South America. I think any soldier who has fought in a conflict in the last 60 years has come up against this weapon or have used it themselves. I was one of those who were assaulted in Vietnam by AK-47 welding VC and NVA. I will always remember the distinct sound that they made when they were fired at you. I used my M-16 rifle for the first time in combat after my Huey crashed. I shouldered my rifle to return fire while extracting the crew from our downed aircraft; it only fired one round before jamming up. That was a horrible feeling to have a weapon that would not work in the dirt and mud of Vietnam. However, that was not the problem of the well designed AK-47, as I would discover personally during my tour of duty there. The author shares a little background on the inventor of the rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov. We discover that he never made anything off his invention and ends up making money off his endorsement of vodka. The official name of the rifle is Automatic Kalashikov - 1947. Thus the shorten name AK- 47. Kalashnikov regrets that his weapon has been used by terrorist organizations world wide. His intentions were to build an easy to use cheap weapon to protect his country from the Nazis. He succeed in building a rifle that could withstand the elements in the jungles, the deserts and in the rice paddies. I honestly enjoyed reading this book and found it held my interest from the beginning to the end. I had previously never read any book or even a magazine article about any gun or weapon before, so this was an eye-opening look at a world that I had not explored. The author treats the subject with respect. His research is first class and appears to be deep. We find ourselves riveted to the tale he unfolds about how these rifles were spread around the globe by even our own CIA. There are now over 100 million of these cheap to make and easy to use rifles out there in use in places like Somalia, the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Peru, Columbia, El Salvador, Vietnam, North Korea and many more countries. It is being used to fight revolutions, uprisings, drug wars, assignations and carry out terror. It has become the weapon of choice. This book is a must read for people w

Because of my regular job as a book reviewer (usually fiction rather than non-fiction) I got an early look at this book and found it extremely interesting. I prefer thrillers for my general reading, and this book had many aspects of that genre. The image of the AK-47 is ubiquitous, as the author points out, but who knew that the CIA was largely responsible for spreading it around the world? Or that US soldiers preferred it to their own M-16s in Vietnam? Or that the Iraqi army refused US offers of M-16s and insisted that they be given AK-47s - which the US then had to buy from Jordan! You didn't see that reported in the local papers. It was also interesting to learn that Mikhail Kalashnikov never made any money from his invention and now, in his late 80s, has to shill for Russian arms makers at huge arms shows. He's the celebrity that brings in the crowd. He's also the guy who peddles Kalashnikov vodka. I'd love to get a bottle of that. Kahaner does a great job of showing how the rifle spread throughout the world by the Soviet Union as part of their Communist doctrine and how time and time again the US military lagged behind in rifle technology. Even now, soldiers in Iraq are complaining that their rifles are not tough enough to withstand the harsh desert environment. There are tons of these intriguing little snippets of history and more than few great stories. Don't pass this one by just because you aren't interested in guns. It's really about history, technology and a world most of us know nothing about, the worldwide arms market. But mostly it's got a lot of intruiging facts and stories to tell the next time you're hanging out at a bar with your friends. Great stuff.

Kahaner has done a great job of weaving history with current events and showing how the AK-47 has become the world's most popular weapon. I was amazed to learn that there are as many as 100 million AK-47s in the world and even though it was first produced about 60 years ago (hence the name AK-47 for "Automatic Kalashnikov - 1947") many of the originals are still around and working, getting recycled from conflict to conflict. The movie "Lords of War" is essentially about the trade in AK-47s. Remarkably, the producer found it cheaper to buy real AKs, rather than replicas. Kahaner shows how this simple, cheap and almost unbreakable gun changed history by allowing almost almost any insurgent group to become a fighting force able to keep even superpowers at bay -- in Somalia, Lebanon, and now Iraq. The book has an excellent chapter about AK-47's inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, who never made a penny on his invention, and is now trying to cash in on the rifle's cachet with his own brand of vodka. This is first rate military and social history.