Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel; The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It
New York: Viking Press, 2008. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. [10], 294 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Julia Keller is an American writer and former journalist. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Keller was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University from the period of 1998 to 1999. Her reviews and commentary air on National Public Radio and on The Newshour(PBS). Keller began her career as a journalist as an intern for columnist Jack Anderson. She went on to work for over 25 years as a reporter for many major newspapers, including the Columbus Dispatch, The Daily Independent, and the Chicago Tribune. She joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune in late 1998, but left her job in 2012 to write full-time. Keller won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her three-part narrative account of the deadly Utica, Illinois tornado outbreak. The Tribune has won many Pulitzers but Keller's prize was its first win for feature writing. In 2008, Keller wrote a nonfiction book that detailed the cultural impact of the Gatling gun. Derived from a Kirkus review: Passionate biography of the inventor of the first practical machine gun. At 26, Gatling struck it rich with a seed planter that enabled farmers to sow in uniform rows instead of scattering seeds by hand; he filed nine more agricultural patents over the next two decades. The 1790 U.S. patent law was a historic achievement, making it cheap and easy for Americans to profit from an invention, it became the engine of an explosion of technical advances. In 1861, Gatling used a rotary mechanical principle similar to that of his seed planter in a patent for the first useful rapid-fire “battery gun.” Despite his energetic efforts, conservative Union ordinance officials rejected it. The army reversed itself in 1866, armies throughout the world quickly followed and the Gatling remained in use until the 1890s. This is colorful portrait of an underappreciated American inventor and his times. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Civil War, Richard Gatling, Gatling Gun, Inventions, Weapons, Patent, World's Fair, Armaments
ISBN: 9780670018949
[Book #76607]
Price: $35.00