"[Chivers] writes both with technical precision and the humanity that comes with understanding the invariably unhappy and all too often horrific consequences of the weapon’s effects. All this makes for a delicate and at times fascinating balancing act, as Mr. Chivers the enthusiast and expert shares the page with Mr. Chivers the historian and journalist — the expert dealing well with the detailed mechanics of his subject, the journalist at other times brilliantly illuminating the book with highly effective vignettes of human courage, ingenuity and, mostly, suffering...Sometimes, however, he dwells, perhaps indulgently, on a particular theme or episode. We are for example more than a third of the way through before we encounter the sometimes pathetic, sometimes tragic figure of Mikhail Kalashnikov and his eponymous rifle. Mr. Chivers’s account of the general development of automatic weapons and the men who pioneered them is impressive."
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Pulitzer Prize winnersColumbia University alumniCornell University alumniJournalists from New York (state)
Original Language: English
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Patrick Hennessey, foreign correspondent for The Times and British Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, reviewing The Gun for The New York Times ().
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._J._Chivers
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C. J. Chivers
Christopher John Chivers (born 1964) is an American journalist and author best known for his work with The New York Times and Esquire magazine. Along with several reporters and photographers based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he contributed to a New York Times staff entry that received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2017. His book, The Gun, a work of history published by Simon & Schuster, was released in October, 2010
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