Gun that Changed the World
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A01=Mikhail Kalashnikov
A02=Elena Joly
ak
assault
Author_Elena Joly
Author_Mikhail Kalashnikov
born
Category=DNB
circulation
conflicts
continents
cuba
elena
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
firearm
first
heart
help
joly
kalashnikovs
life
million
mozambique
national flag
palestine
reason
rifle
simple
spoken
story
time
vietnam
weapon
world
Product details
- ISBN 9780745636924
- Weight: 295g
- Dimensions: 141 x 208mm
- Publication Date: 21 Aug 2006
- Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The Russian word that is most frequently spoken throughout the world isn't Lenin, gulag or perestroika, it’s ‘Kalashnikov’. The reason for this is simple: there are 80 million Kalashnikovs in circulation on five continents. Once invented, the AK-47 assault rifle became the most widely used weapon in the world: from Vietnam to Palestine, from Cuba to Iraq, it was at the heart of conflicts and struggles everywhere. It is the only firearm that has ever been depicted on a national flag – that of Mozambique, where it symbolizes liberation.
Mikhail Kalashnikov himself, who was born in 1919, here tells his life story, with the help of Elena Joly, for the first time: his deportation to Siberia with his family while still a child; his time as a soldier in a tank regiment; his invention of the world’s most famous weapon and his turbulent life under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This is a remarkable portrait of a man of ingenuity and vitality in the context of the often frightening and terribly unforgiving Russia of the twentieth century.
Elena Joly listened to Kalashnikov as he told his story and has been careful to respect his spoken style. Born in the Soviet Union, she now lives in Paris. She was in charge of the 'Soviet section' of the French publishing house Actes Sud, and has written La Troisième Mort de Staline (1988), a series of interviews with intellectuals of the Gorbachev period.
