Description
The author, a New York Times reporter, traces the invention and mass distribution of the AK-47 assault rifle, and its effects on war. He traces the invention of the assault rifle, following the miniaturization of rapid-fire arms from the American Civil War, through World War I and Vietnam, to present-day Afghanistan, where Kalashnikovs and their knockoffs number as many as 100 million, one for every seventy persons on earth. It is the weapon of state repression, as well as revolution, civil war, genocide, drug wars, and religious wars; and it is the arms of terrorists, guerrillas, boy soldiers, and thugs. From its inception to its use by more than fifty national armies around the world, to its role in modern-day Afghanistan, he discusses how the deadly weapon has helped alter world history.
About the Author
A former Marine Corps infantry officer, C.J. Chivers is a senior writer at The New York Times. He contributes to the Foreign and Investigative desks and frequently posts on the At War blog, writing on war, tactics, human rights, politics, crime and the arms trade from Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Georgia, Chechnya and elsewhere on a wide range of assignments.In addition to writing, he shoots video and, occasionally, photographs. He served as Moscow correspondent from June 2004 through 2007, and was the paper's Moscow bureau chief in 2007 and 2008. He has also covered war zones or conflicts in the Palestinian territories, Israel and Central Asia. From 1999 until 2001 he covered crime and law enforcement in New York City, working in a three-reporter bureau inside the police headquarters in Lower Manhattan. While in this bureau, he covered the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.Before joining The Times, Chivers was a staff writer at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island from 1995 until 1999, covering crime and politics, and was a contributor to several magazines, writing on wildlife, natural history and conservation. He remains a contributor to Esquire and Field & Stream.From 1988 until 1994, Chivers was an officer in the United States Marine Corps, serving in the Persian Gulf War and performing peacekeeping duties as a company commander during the Los Angeles riots. He was honorably discharged as a captain in 1994.In 1996, Chivers received the Livingston Award for International Journalism for a series on the collapse of commercial fishing in the North Atlantic. Two of his stories in The Times from Afghanistan were cited in the award of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2002. In 2007, his reconstruction for Esquire of the terrorist siege of a public school in Beslan, Russia, won the Michael Kelly Award and National Magazine Award for Reporting. He was also part of The Times's team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009, for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. His combat reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan, with that of his colleague Dexter Filkins and the photographer Tyler Hicks, with whom he often works, was selected in 2010 by New York University as one of the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade.His book of history and conflict, "The Gun," mixes years or archival research, battlefield reportage and investigative reporting in Europe, Russia, the United States and Africa to document the origins, spread and effects of the world's most abundant firearm. Told through battlefield reconstructions and character sketches that trace an evolution in technology and in war, it will be published by Simon & Schuster in October, 2010.Chivers was born in Binghamton, N.Y. He graduated with a B.A. cum laude in English from Cornell University in January 1988 and was the 1995 valedictorian of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also graduated from several military schools, including the United States Army's Ranger Course. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife and their five children.Articles, essays, blog posts, photographs and video reports by C.J. Chivers can be found on the websites of The New York Times, Esquire, and the At War blog, or onwww.cjchivers.com.
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