Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel

[grladams at teleport.com]

Great side reading for ATD it might seem:
Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the
Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It - Street Smart 
Contributor(s): Keller, Julia (Author)  
  
ISBN: 0670018945    EAN: 9780670018949  
 
Publisher: Viking Books 
 
US SRP: $ 25.95 US  -  (Discount: REG)  
 
 
Pub Date: June 2008  
 
Street Date: May 29, 2008 
 
 

Publishers Weekly (Monday , March 03, 2008):
Keller, a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, analyzes the nexus between
invention and culture in this incisive and instructive cultural history cum
biography. Her subject is the iconic Gatling gun, the first successful
machine gun, and its inventor, Richard Jordan Gatling, a 19th-century
tinkerer and entrepreneur. A gifted amateur inventor, he registered his
first patentfor a mechanical seed planterin 1844 and had 43 lifetime
patents. In 1862, with the Civil War raging, Gatling invented a six-barrel,
rapid-firing (200 rounds per minute) gun based on his seed planter.
Initially rejected by the Union army, the gun finally came into use in 1866
as a bully and enforcer against striking workers and in the Indian Wars;
its legacythe mechanization of deathdidn't become fully apparent until the
killing fields of WWI. A celebrity in the 19th century, Gatling was soon
reviled for his terrible marvel and then consigned to obscurity. Keller
rescues Gatling and anchors his remarkable life firmly in the landscape of
19th-century America: a time and place of egalitarian hope and infinite
possibility." (June)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. 



Review Quotes:
"With a rat-a-tat pace and a wicked sense of humor, Julia Keller uses the
story of Gatling's famous machine-gun to take us on an exuberant and
entertaining tour through American capitalism in the nineteenth-century.
This book is a carnival for history buffs - bursting with colorful
characters, uncanny connections, and contagious enthusiasm."
-Debby Applegate, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for "The Most Famous
Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher" 
"Julia Keller has not only given us the fascinating story of the Gatling
gun and its colorful inventor, but has also placed it into a valid and
original context. She takes us into the middle of nineteenth century
America as it really was: a westward-looking continent packed with dreams,
energy, and ambitious practical ideas, a place where mechanical inventions
created a vision of limitless power that shaped much of the nation's
philosophy and destiny. This is the story of the artifact as changing
history, the early machine gun as bringing about as great a transformation
as the simple stirrup did in its era. If you haven't heard of Julia Keller,
you'll hear of her now."
-Charles Bracelen Flood, author of "Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that
Won the Civil War" and past president of PEN American Center. 

Publisher Marketing:
A Pulitzer Prize winner explores the role of the first machine gun in
transforming America into a superpower 
Although it was little used during the American Civil Warathe time in which
it was inventedathe Gatling gun soon changed the nature of warfare and the
course of world history. Discharging two hundred shots per minute with
alarming accuracy, the worldas first machine gun became vitally important
to protecting and expanding Americaas overseas interests. Its inventor,
Richard Gatling, was famous in his own time for creating and improving many
industrial designs, from bicycles and steamship propellers to flush
toilets. A man of great business and scientific acumen, Gatling actually
proposed his gun as a way of saving lives, thinking it would decrease the
size of armies and, therefore, make it easier to supply soldiers and reduce
malnutrition deaths. The scientists who unleashed Americaas atomic arsenal
less than a century later would see it much the same way. 
In "Mr. Gatlingas Terrible Marvel," Julia Keller offers a riveting account
of the Gatling gunas invention, its misunderstood creator, and its
tremendous impact on American and world events. She also shows how the gun,
in its combination of ingenuity, idealism, and destructive power, perfectly
exemplified the paradox of Americaas rise as a world superpower. 



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