It is easy to forget what a cultural sensation technology can produce – and perhaps no instance was greater than that of the Gatling gun.
In her outstanding 2006 book, Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, author Julia Keller gives a detailed and lucid account of Richard Gatling and his quest to create a true machine gun — and the unintended consequences his invention had for modern man. Anyone who has read Winston Churchill’s account of the Battle of Omdurman will not forget the horrific, at first lopsided battles made possible by this invention.
In this excerpt, the author introduces her broad topic. She is a journalist by trade and writes scholarly prose that is clear and concise – a rare combination. Even in this brief passage, we can see the ease with which she portrays how a weapon can embody an entire set of ideas; she makes an epic story seem simple.
You can certainly see echoes of Mr. Gatling’s marvel in the uneasy relationship between technology and warfare that we struggle with today.