Best Firearms Weapons & Warfare History Books
Here you will get Best Firearms Weapons & Warfare History Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Long Range Shooting Handbook: The Complete Beginner's Guide to Precision Rifle Shooting
Author: by Ryan M Cleckner
Published at: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1st edition (January 31, 2016)
ISBN: 978-1518654725
25% of this book’s proceeds will be donated to two military charities: the Special Operation Warrior Foundation and the Sua Sponte Foundation. This book is the complete beginner’s guide to long range shooting written in simple every-day language so that it’s easy to follow.
Included are personal tips and best advice from my years of special operations sniper schooling and experience, and as a sniper instructor. If you are an experienced shooter, this guide will be a resource covering the principles and theory of long range shooting.
This is the preliminary book to help you understand fundamental concepts such as MOA vs Mils and external ballistics, that can be like a trusted resource at the range. Learning to shoot long range isn’t that difficult. Once you understand the basics, you can start to master your technique and you’ll be hitting targets in no time.
The author has a series of online instructional videos known for their ability to take seemingly complex areas of long range shooting and breaking them down so that they’re easy to understand. This book was motivated by the feedback from those videos.
2. Shifty's War: The Authorized Biography of Sergeant Darrell "Shifty" Powers, the Legendary Shar pshooter from the Band of Brothers
Author: by Marcus Brotherton
Published at: Dutton Caliber; Illustrated edition (May 1, 2012)
ISBN: 978-0425247372
From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and more, here is the authorized biography of one of the most celebrated paratroopers of Easy Company, Sergeant Shifty Powers, the legendary sharpshooter from the Band of Brothers. As a boy, Darrell Shifty Powers’s goal was to become the best rifle shot he could be.
His father trained him to listen to the woods, to see without his eyes. Little did Shifty know his finely-tuned skills would one day save his lifeand the lives of his fellow paratroopers. As one of the original men who trained at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, Shifty was one out of only two soldiers in Easy Company to initially earn the coveted expert marksman designation.
He parachuted into France on D-day and fought for a month in Normandy; eighty days in Holland; thirty-nine in the harshly cold winter of Bastogne; and for nearly thirty more near Haguenau, France, and the Ruhr pocket in Germany. Shifty’s War is a tale of heroism and adventure, of a soldier’s blood-filled days fighting his way fromthe shores of France to the heartland of Germany, and the epic story of how one man’s skills as a sharpshooter and engagingly unassuming personality propelled him to a life greater than he could have ever imagined.
3. The Art of the Japanese Sword: The Craft of Swordmaking and its Appreciation
Author: by Yoshindo Yoshihara
Published at: Tuttle Publishing; Hardcover with Jacket edition (September 10, 2012)
ISBN: 978-4805312407
In The Art of the Japanese Sword, master swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshihara offers a detailed look at the entire process of Japanese sword making, including the finishing and appreciation of Japanese blades. Japanese sword art stands out in many ways: functionality as a weapon, sophisticated metallurgy and metalsmithing, the shape of the blade itselfall contribute to the beauty of these remarkable weapons.
The Art of the Japanese Sword conveys to the reader Japanese samurai sword history and Japanese sword care, as well as explaining how to view and appreciate a blade. With 256 full-color pages, this sword book illustrates in meticulous detail how modern craftsmen use traditional methods to prepare their steel, forge the sword and create the unique hardened edge.
By gaining a good understanding of how a sword is made, the reader will be able to appreciate the samurai sword more fully. Topics include: Appreciating the Japanese swordHistory of the Japanese swordTraditional Japanese steelmakingMaking the swordFinishing the sword
4. Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America
Author: by Jim Rasenberger
Published at: Scribner; Illustrated edition (May 26, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1501166389
A sweeping, definitive biography of Samuel Coltthe inventor of the legendary Colt revolver (a.K.A. Six-shooter)which changed the US forever, triggering the industrial revolution and the settlement of the American West. Patented in 1836, the Colt pistol with its revolving cylinder was the first practical firearm that could shoot more than one bullet without reloading.
For many reasons, Colt’s gun had a profound effect on American history. Its most immediate impact was on the expansionism of the American west, where white emigrants and US soldiers came to depend on it, and where Native Americans came to dread it.
The six-shooter became the iconic weapon of gun-slingers, outlaws, and cowboyssome willing to pay $500 out west for a gun that sold for $25 back east. In making the revolver, Colt also changed American manufacturinghis factory revolutionized industry in the United States.
Ultimately, Colt and his gun-making brought together the two most significant forces of change before the Civil Warthe industrial revolution in the east, Manifest Destiny in the west. Brilliantly told, Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist and leader Samuel Colt to vivid life.
5. Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms
Author: by Nicholas Johnson
Published at: Prometheus; 1st Edition (January 14, 2014)
ISBN:
978-1616148393
Chronicling the underappreciated black tradition of bearing arms for self-defense, this book presents an array of examples reaching back to the pre-Civil War era that demonstrate a willingness of African American men and women to use firearms when necessary to defend their families and communities.
From Frederick Douglass’s advice to keep “a good revolver” handy as defense against slave catchers to the armed self-protection of Monroe, North Carolina, blacks against the KKK chronicled in Robert Williams’s Negroes with Guns, it is clear that owning firearms was commonplace in the black community.
NicholasJohnson points out that this story has been submerged because it is hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence during the civil rights era. His book, however, resolves that tension by showing how the black tradition of arms maintained and demanded a critical distinction between private self-defense and political violence.
Johnson also addresses the unavoidable issue of young black men with guns and the toll that gun violence takes on many in the inner city. He shows how complicated this issue is by highlighting the surprising diversity of views on gun ownership in the black community.
6. The White Sniper: Simo Häyhä
Author: by Tapio Saarelainen
Published at: Casemate; Illustrated edition (October 19, 2016)
ISBN: 978-1612004297
Simo Hyh (1905 2002) is the most famous sniper in the world. During the Winter War fought between Russia and Finland in 1939 1940 he had 542 confirmed kills with iron sights, a record that still stands today. He has been a role model for snipers all over the world and paved the way for them by demonstrating their significance on the battlefield.
Simo Hyh was a man of action who spoke very little, but he was hugely respected by his men and his superiors and given many difficult missions, including taking out specific targets. Able to move silently and swiftly through the landscape, melting into the snowbound surroundings in his white camouflage fatigues, his aim was deadly and his quarry rarely escaped.
The Russians learned of his reputation as a marksman and tried several times to kill him by indirect fire. He was promoted from corporal to second lieutenant and he was awarded the Cross of Kollaa. For sniping Simo Hyh only ever used his own m/28-30 rifle.
Eventually his luck ran out and Simo received a serious head wound on March 6 1940, though he subsequently recovered. After the war Simo Hyh lead a quiet, unassuming life in farming and forestry. His roots were deep in the Finnish soil and he loved life in rural Finland.
7. Samurai: An Illustrated History
Author: by Mitsuo Kure
Published at: Tuttle Publishing (May 15, 2002)
ISBN: 978-0804832878
Samurai: An Illustrated History brings the violent, tumultuous, and, at the same time, elegant world of the medieval Japanese samurai to life. This Japanese history book traces the story of a unique historical phenomenon: a period of 700 yearsequivalent to the entire stretch of Western history between the reigns of the Crusader king Richard the Lionhearted and of Queen Victoria at the height of the British Empireduring which an enclosed civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste.
The historical narrative of samurai history is supported by explanations of samurai armor, weapons, fortifications, tactics, and customs, and illustrated with nearly 800 fascinating color photographs, maps, and sketches, including ancient scroll paintings and surviving suits of armor preserved for centuries in Japanese shrines.
From the 12th to the 19th centuries the history of Japan was mainly the history of the samuraithe class of professional fighting men. At first, they were no more than lowly soldiery employed by the court aristocracy of Kyoto, but the growing power of the provincial warrior clans soon enabled them to brush aside the executive power of the imperial court and to form a parallel military government.
8. Japanese Swords: Cultural Icons of a Nation; The History, Metallurgy and Iconography of the Samurai Sword
Author: by Colin M. Roach
Published at: Tuttle Publishing; Reprint edition (August 19, 2014)
ISBN: 978-4805313312
With over 300 stunning photographs and woodblock prints along with extensive historical and cultural commentary, Japanese Swords is the ultimate authority on Samurai weaponry. Historically, Japanese warriors considered their swords to be more elevated than simple weaponry. Their swords were both lethal tools and divine companions social and religious icons.
Traditionally worn by the samurai as a sign of social status, the Japanese sword represented the junction between the ruling military class and those whom they ruled. Moreover, the samurai sword was a technological and artistic marvel. Many scholars consider it to be the finest sword ever constructed.
Concerning symbolism and historical importance, no other blade comes close to the Japanese sword. With a historical, iconographical, and technological perspective, author Cohn M. Roach provides an in-depth study of these magnificent weapons in Japanese Swords. This richly illustrated sword book weaves the blade’s primary influences together, tracking its history and illuminating its progress from infancy to grandeur.
9. The Gun that Changed the World
Author: by Mikhail Kalashnikov
Published at: Polity; 1st edition (October 27, 2006)
ISBN: 978-0745636924
The Russian word that is most frequently spoken throughout the world isn’t Lenin, gulag or perestroika, it’s Kalashnikov’. The reason for this is simple: there are 80 million Kalashnikovs in circulation on five continents. Once invented, the AK-47 assault rifle became the most widely used weapon in the world: from Vietnam to Palestine, from Cuba to Iraq, it was at the heart of conflicts and struggles everywhere.
It is the only firearm that has ever been depicted on a national flag that of Mozambique, where it symbolizes liberation. Mikhail Kalashnikov himself, who was born in 1919, here tells his life story, with the help of Elena Joly, for the first time: his deportation to Siberia with his family while still a child; his time as a soldier in a tank regiment; his invention of the world’s most famous weapon and his turbulent life under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
This is a remarkable portrait of a man of ingenuity and vitality in the context of the often frightening and terribly unforgiving Russia of the twentieth century.
10. Israel's Edge: The Story of The IDF's Most Elite Unit – Talpiot
Author: by Jason Gewirtz
Published at:
Gefen Publishing House (February 15, 2016)
ISBN: 978-9652297136
How will Israel keep its strategic edge over an increasingly dangerous Iran? Israel has been preparing for this day by creating a special and secretive IDF unit called Talpiot. Instead of being trained to fight, the few soldiers each year selected for Talpiot are taught how to think.
In order to join this unit they have to commit to being in the army for ten years, rather than the three years a normal soldier serves. Talpiots are taught advanced level physics, math and computer science as they train with soldiers from every other branch of the IDF.
The result: young men and women become research and development machines. Talpiots have developed battle ready weapons that only Israel’s top military officers and political leaders know about. They have also dramatically improved much of the weapons already in Israel’s arsenal.
After leaving the army, Talpiots have become a major force in the Israeli economy, developing some of Israel’s most famous and powerful companies. Israel’s Edge contains dozens of interviews with Talpiot graduates and some of the early founders of the program.
11. The Samurai Sword: A Handbook
Author: by John M. Yumoto
Published at: Tuttle Publishing; Revised, Revised edition (March 10, 2011)
ISBN: 978-4805311349
The samurai sword: a symbol of the spirit of old Japan, it embodies the samurai’s steel discipline, unswerving devotion and peerless skill. With its creation, a feat of craftsmanship passed down by generations of artisans; the samurai sword is considered by most to be superior even to the famed blades of Western Damascus and Toledo.
The Samurai Sword Handbook is a precise exploration of the samurai sword designed for sword collectors as well as anyone intrigued by these ancient blades. Detailing the origins and development of the samurai sword, its historical background, styles, prestigious schools and differences in construction, this revised edition of the classic reference outlines methods of identifying and researching the sword, as well as caring for it properly.
This must-have for sword lovers is sure to be a bestseller. Topics of this Samurai book include:Japanese History and the Samurai SwordTypes of swordsParts of the swordBlade shape, construction, and grainThe making of the swordInscriptions and their readingsCare and maintenanceAppraisal and valueRelative point values
12. Swords of the Viking Age
Author: by Ian Peirce
Published at: Boydell Press; Illustrated edition (September 8, 2005)
ISBN: 978-1843830894
This beautifully illustrated work fills a gap in the literature in English on the swords made and used in northern Europe during the Viking age, between the mid eighth and the mid eleventh centuries. Ewart Oakeshott outlines the significance and diversity of these ancient heirlooms; co-author Ian Peirce, who handled hundreds of swords in his research for this book in museums across northern Europe, selects and describes sixty of the finest representative weapons.
Where possible, full-length photographs are included, in addition to illustrations of detail; an illustrated overview of blade types and construction, pattern-welding, inscription and handle forms and their classification prefaces the catalogue of examples which is the principal part of this work.
IAN PEIRCE was a lecturer and museum consultant specialising in early swords; EWART OAKESHOTT was renowned for his pioneer studies on a wide range of medieval swords.
13. A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: in All Countries and in All Times (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)
Author: by George Cameron Stone
Published at: Dover Publications; Illustrated edition (July 2, 1999)
ISBN: 978-0486407265
Widely considered the classic book in the field, George Cameron Stone’s A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times is an indispensable resource and reference tool for anyone interested in arms and armor.
Originally published in 1934, it remains an essential guide to the field. To describe the worldwide range and variety of weaponry, Stone drew upon the more than 4,000 items in his private collection of Eastern arms and armor, as well as the European arms collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a variety of other sources.
Since the author subsequently bequeathed his entire collection to the Metropolitan Museum, this volume serves as an abbreviated visual reference to that institution’s Arms and Armor collection. By profession a metallurgist, the author focused on techniques of manufacture and workmanship to derive his method of codifying the typology of weapons, relying on an alphabetized dictionary format to avoid the confusions he found in a field without standardized nomenclature.
14. The Soviet Mosin-Nagant Manual
Author: by Terence W. Lapin
Published at: Hyrax Pub Llc (December 10, 1999)
ISBN: 978-0967689609
This is the first generally-available English translation of an official Soviet military manual on one of the world’s most widely-produced rifles. The book covers the use, functioning, care, sighting, and many other aspects of the M1891/30 Mosin-Nagant rifle, the Mosin sniper rifle, and the M1938- and M1944 carbines.
15. War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World
Author: by Max Boot
Published at: Avery; 59928th edition (August 16, 2007)
ISBN: 978-1592403158
A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, that shows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformed the battlefield Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis, War Made New focuses on four “revolutions” in military affairs and describes how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided air strikes have remade the field of battleand shaped the rise and fall of empires.
War Made New begins with the Gunpowder Revolution and explains warfare’s evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to much deadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation-state. He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during the Industrial Revolution, showing how it powered the spread of European colonial empires.
Moving into the twentieth century and the Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three critical clashes of World War II to illustrate how new technology such as the tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms of warfare and the rise of centralized, and even totalitarian, world powers.
16. Deadly Bribe: The History of a Fritz Sauckel WWII Walther Presentation Pistol
Author: by Rudolf E. Kraus
Published at: Independently published (January 2, 2021)
ISBN: 979-8582073611
A unique pistol with a notorious history. If only guns could talkBut this Walther PP can talkand it has an amazing story to tell. Manufactured in 1938 as the Nazis were rising to power in Germany, it was ornately engraved to be given as a ceremonial gift.
The presenter was infamous Fritz Sauckel, Minister of Labor, later convicted at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. The occasion was a Nazi festival highlighted by Hitler’s speech denouncing Winston Churchill. But the recipient of the presentation PP is a mysteryOne of the few Fritz Sauckel engraved presentation Walthers to have survived the war, this elegant firearm was custom inscribed with the donor’s name and the recipient’s initials.
Follow the author’s fascinating journey as he uses logic and educated assumptions in his quest to identify the recipient. His conclusion: this firearm was a bribe to ensure a future favora favor that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Military memorabilia collectors and World War II history buffs alike will enjoy the remarkable story behind this historic firearm. Pick up your copy of Deadly Bribe today!
