Paths of Fireplace: The Gun and the World It Made

In case you squeeze the set off of a Kalashnikov a bullet is kicked up the barrel by an archaic chemical explosion that will have been fairly acquainted to Oliver Cromwell or Basic Custer.

The gun, vintage, but modern, nonetheless dominates the world. Political and worldwide buildings and shopper tradition have been moulded by analysis that firearms have provoked; the brand new science of Galileo and Newton owed a lot to the Renaissance examine of ballistics in addition to more moderen mass manufacturing and synthetic intelligence. This e book follows the historical past of the gun from the primary cannons, to fashionable gunnery, to Star Wars and the but to be realised electrical futures of rays and beams.

Revealed in affiliation with the Science Museum, London.