The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture

Haag, Pamela

ISBN 10: 150471086X ISBN 13: 9781504710862

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2016

Synopsis

Before he founded the Winchester Company in 1866, Oliver Winchester, like most Americans at the time, had never owned a gun, or even shot one. 150 years later, his company has sold over eight million firearms. In The Gunning of America, historian Pamela Haag tells the story of the Winchester rifle, the Winchester family, and the origins of American gun culture. Drawing on the company's voluminous archives, Haag reveals that America has not always been a gun-loving nation, but rather was sold the idea (and the guns that went with it) by gun manufacturers and shrewd marketers. Tracing our current gun culture to its unexpected roots, Haag sheds light on one of American society's most contentious debates.

About this title

About the Author

Pamela Haag holds a PhD in history from Yale University and has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, a Mellon Fellowship, and post­doctoral awards from Brown and Rutgers universities. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Review

"In her remarkable new book, The Gunning of America, historian Pamela Haag undercuts much of the charged rhetoric about the importance of firearms in the nation's culture and history with a richly sourced, empirical look at the 19th century origins of the gun business and the men who made it."
―Boston Globe

"[An] inspired new book... Haag's book is strongest when it upends the belief that America has had an uninterrupted love affair with guns."―San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] fascinating exploration of the major businesses and families that have manufactured firearms--and manufactured the seductiveness of firearms--in this country over the past 150 years."―Carlos Lozada, Washington Post

"A revealing new account of the origins of America's gun industry."―New York Review of Books

"[A] fascinating account.... Both convincingly argued and eminently readable, Haag's book will intrigue readers on all sides of the gun control debate."―Publishers Weekly, "starred review"

"In her masterful The Gunning of America, Pamela Haag furnishes a salutary corrective to the perception of the gun's inevitability in American life by showing its history as a commodity invented and then deliberately marketed and distributed like any other widget or household appliance.... [A] beautifully composed and meticulously researched volume."―New Republic

"Pamela Haag has accomplished a rare feat. She combines wonderful storytelling with a serious analysis of the firearms business to reveal how the Winchester Repeating Arms Company taught Americans to love guns."―Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University

"Pamela Haag has written a very smart book, deeply researched, original, provocative. The compelling narrative makes a powerful argument about the origins of America's gun culture."―John Mack Faragher, Howard R. Lamar Professor of History, Yale University

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 150471086X
• ISBN 13: 9781504710862
• Binding: Audio CD