A friend of mine sent me a box of books a couple months back, one book included was Chris Kyle’s American Gun. I read American Sniper some years back (and also Lone Survivor). American Gun is subtitled “A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms.” The book was unfinished when Kyle met his fate. William Doyle is the co-author. The book came out in 2013, the same year that Kyle died.
Contents:
The American Long Rifle
The Spencer Repeater
The Colt Single-Action Army Revolver
The Winchester 1873 Rifle
The M1903 Springfield
The M1911 Pistol
The Thompson Submachine Gun
The M1 Garand
The .38 Special Police Revolver
The M16 Rifle
Epilogue
The book covers the beginnings of the American gun industry with flintlock rifles up the Armalite Rifle platform that is still in use today.
Kyle intersperses historic episodes in each chapter involving the gun’s development. This is actually a good pop history of American firearms. I already knew what Kyle covered but he (or Doyle) wrote in an engaging style that made for easy reading. I would knock off a chapter an hour before going to bed each night. This would be a good book for someone who knows nothing about the history of firearms. A reader could get up to speed reading this book.
If your library has a copy of the book, check it out. I like to intersperse non-fiction in between fiction reading.