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The Gunning of America
- Business and the Making of American Gun Culture
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
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Publisher's summary
Americans have always loved guns. This special bond was forged during the American Revolution and sanctified by the Second Amendment. It is because of this exceptional relationship that American civilians are more heavily armed than the citizens of any other nation. Or so we're told.
In The Gunning of America, historian Pamela Haag overturns this conventional wisdom. American gun culture, she argues, developed not because the gun was exceptional but precisely because it was not: guns proliferated in America because throughout most of the nation's history they were perceived as an unexceptional commodity, no different from buttons or typewriters.
Focusing on the history of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, one of the most iconic arms manufacturers in America, Haag challenges many basic assumptions of how and when America became a gun culture. Under the leadership of Oliver Winchester and his heirs, the company used aggressive, sometimes ingenious sales and marketing techniques to create new markets for their product. Guns have never "sold themselves"; rather, through advertising and innovative distribution campaigns, the gun industry did.
Through the meticulous examination of gun-industry archives, Haag challenges the myth of a primal bond between Americans and their firearms. Over the course of its 150-year history, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company sold over eight million guns. But Oliver Winchester - a shirtmaker in his previous career - had no apparent qualms about a life spent arming America. His daughter-in-law, Sarah Winchester, was a different story. Legend holds that Sarah was haunted by what she considered a vast blood fortune and became convinced that the ghosts of rifle victims were haunting her.
In this provocative and deeply researched work of narrative history, Haag fundamentally revises the history of arms in America and, in so doing, explodes the clichés that have created and sustained our lethal gun culture.
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With a cast of characters that wouldnt be out of place in a Victorian novel, Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties, through the prism of the Cadburys. Chocolate was consumed unrefined and unprocessed as a rather bitter, fatty drink for the wealthy elite until the late 19th century, when the Swiss discovered a way to blend it with milk and unleashed a product that would conquer every market in the world.
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The World of Chocolate
- By Jean on 11-05-14
By: Deborah Cadbury
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American Entrepreneur
- How 400 Years of Risk-Takers, Innovators, and Business Visionaries Built the U.S.A.
- By: Willie Robertson, William Doyle
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of the United States is, to a remarkable degree, the story of its entrepreneurs, those daring movers and shakers who dreamed big and risked everything to build better lives for themselves, and their fellow Americans. In American Entrepreneur, Duck Commander CEO and star of the blockbuster Duck Dynasty series Willie tells the captivating true tale of the visionaries and doers who have embodied the American Dream.
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Should have been narrated by Willie
- By Tyler smoke on 12-05-18
By: Willie Robertson, and others
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Hershey
- Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
- By: Michael D'Antonio
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
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The Benchmark for Chartiable, Rich Men
- By Boyd Tschaggeny on 01-30-19
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Glock
- The Rise of America's Gun
- By: Paul M. Barrett
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Today the Glock pistol has been embraced by two-thirds of all U.S. police departments, glamorized in countless Hollywood movies, and featured as a ubiquitous presence on prime-time TV. It has been rhapsodized by hip-hop artists, and coveted by cops and crooks alike. Created in 1982 by Gaston Glock, an obscure Austrian curtain-rod manufacturer, and swiftly adopted by the Austrian army, the Glock pistol, with its lightweight plastic frame and large-capacity spring-action magazine, arrived in America at a fortuitous time.
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Interesting story. Could have done w/o anti gun rhetoric
- By jcgeesling on 02-24-19
By: Paul M. Barrett
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Captive of the Labyrinth
- Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune
- By: Mary Jo Ignoffo
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The first full-length biography of Sarah Winchester, the subject of the movie Winchester starring Helen Mirren, now available for the first time in audio. Since her death in 1922, Sarah Winchester has been perceived as a mysterious, haunted figure. After inheriting a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in 1881, Sarah purchased a simple farmhouse in San José, California. She began building additions to the house and continued construction on it for the next twenty years. A hostile press cast Sarah as the conscience of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company—a widow shouldering responsibility for the many deaths caused by the rifle that brought her riches. She was accused of being a ghost-obsessed spiritualist, and to this day it is largely believed that the extensive construction she executed on her San José house was done to appease the ghouls around her. But was she really as guilt-ridden and superstitious as history remembers her? When Winchester’s home was purchased after her death, it was transformed into a tourist attraction. The bizarre, sprawling mansion and the enigmatic nature of Winchester’s life were exaggerated by the new owners to generate publicity for their business. But as the mansion has become more widely known, the person of Winchester has receded from reality, and she is only remembered for squandering her riches to ward off disturbed spirits.
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Facts to Silence the Myths
- By Carmen Gibson on 03-07-24
By: Mary Jo Ignoffo
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Only Yesterday
- An Informal History of the 1920s
- By: Frederick Lewis Allen
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In this span between armistice and depression, Americans were kicking up their heels, but they were also bringing about major changes in the social and political structure of their country. Only Yesterday is a fond, witty, penetrating biography of this restless decade, a delightful reminiscence for those who can remember and a fascinating firsthand look for those who've only heard.
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Loved this book
- By Matthew M. Kayes on 06-11-07
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The Tycoons
- How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
- By: Charles R. Morris
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. Acclaimed author Charles R. Morris vividly brings these men and their times to life. The Tycoons tells the incredible story of how these four determined men wrenched the economy into the modern age, inventing a nation of full economic participation that could not have been imagined earlier.
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Good book wrong title
- By Hectoris on 10-06-16
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New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
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Young Benjamin Franklin
- The Birth of Ingenuity
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
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Good Book but LOTS of Names
- By Tim on 10-31-19
By: Nick Bunker
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Americana
- A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
- By: Bhu Srinivasan
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Bhu Srinivasan
- Length: 21 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a 400-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things - the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking, to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the 21st century.
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Excellent history!
- By L. Maranto on 10-14-17
By: Bhu Srinivasan
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Revolver
- Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America
- By: Jim Rasenberger
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliantly told, Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist and leader Samuel Colt to vivid life. In the space of his 47 years, he seemingly lived five lives: He traveled, womanized, drank prodigiously, smuggled guns to Russia, bribed politicians, and supplied the Union Army with the guns they needed to win the Civil War. Colt lived during an age of promise and progress, but also of slavery, corruption, and unbridled greed, and he not only helped to create this America, he completely embodied it.
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Sam Colt, but not the Revolver
- By Eggleston on 08-01-20
By: Jim Rasenberger
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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Master of the Mountain
- Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book - based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers - opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money.
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Clear, Insightful & Iconclastic History
- By R.S. on 04-18-13
By: Henry Wiencek
What listeners say about The Gunning of America
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- W. Spencer Hill II
- 02-20-21
Not as complete as one would hope.
The author starts out apolitical and neutral on the history of gun manufacturing in the US . This is really the history of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, not the other companies such as Colt, S&W, one mention of Marlin. The history basically stops in the 1920s and becomes a gun control rant.
The book at points becomes a women's studies course on Sara Winchester and her spiritualism (probably would be "white guilt" also).To much of the book is about Sara Winchester.
This is what you get from a Yale history professor.
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- D. Rosado
- 11-01-17
Interesting but all over the place
The topic is certainly relevant and interesting. However the book is all over the place. I think the book would have been better served by starting with the epilogue, and sticking to the sales and marketing tactics used by the gun industry with more emphasis on the nra and its tactics. The Sarah Winchester story was dragged out well past being interesting.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-05-22
Great Read!
I started reading this 2 days before the Uvalde school shooting. It helped diffuse a lot of the anger I had because of the shooting. I was blaming the police and the politicians. It didn't cross my mind to think of the gun businesses that make the guns. Hopefully we can start getting together as a nation and start putting pressure on the gun manufacturers to do something.
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- Margie Reinitz
- 03-15-18
Chapter 23 sums up our current gun issues
This book focuses on how capitalists wanted all Americans to think they need to buy a gun. Also gives excellent background on capilatists being gun runners and merchants of death. We did not get to our current gun issues by chance. Study the history.
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- A. Francis
- 02-24-21
Very subjective, lots of speculation, many inaccuracies
The author has a clearly very anti-firearm stance, and this is evident throughout the book. There is also a large amount of speculation in the text, particularly around Sarah Winchester. It is evident throughout the book that she has a clearly very subjective anti-firearms stance and the arguments that she uses to back up that stance are largely inconsistent and contradictory. Furthermore, the author insists on calling lever action rifles ‘semi-automatic’ - even after discussing in detail how they operate. The book is hyper-focused around the early history of the Winchester company and Sarah Winchester’s life. Discussion of ‘gun culture’ only covers the last few chapters and, as a result, glosses over the last 100 years of history.
Overall it was an interesting read for the history, but it does not live up to it’s title in any way. The immense amount of basic errors, which could be remedied by a five minute google search, call the rest of the text into question. If you are looking for a book that takes a critical look at this complex topic, you won’t find it in this read.
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- Esteban
- 07-01-23
So much potential…wasted
There is good content in this book. But it has two fundamental problems.
1) The author spends nearly half the book speculating about a character that plays a very minor role in the overall history. There not a lot of substance but just a lot of “she may have” and “perhaps she thought,” etc.
2) the book seems to be written for a mass audience, but the author can’t resist writing as if this were for academia. Convoluted sentences. Unnecessary big words. Tons of extensive quoting from sources she likes.
In short, whoever edited this book failed at their task. I was excited to read a history of the gun industry, Instead I struggled through one of the most poorly written books I have read in a long time.
All that being said, it does contain some interesting insights into the history of the gun business in America. The question is: is the juice worth the squeeze?
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