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Revolver

Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed America

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Revolver

By: Jim Rasenberger
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
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A “gripping,” (Booklist) “clear-eyed, and honest” (The New York Times Book Review) biography of Samuel Colt—the 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 cowboys—some willing to pay $500 out west for a gun that sold for $25 back east.

In making the revolver, Colt also changed American manufacturing—his 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 War—the industrial revolution in the east, Manifest Destiny in the west.

“Written with a journalist’s sense of color and a historian’s eye for the revealing detail” (The Wall Street Journal), Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist and leader Samuel Colt to vivid life. In the space of his forty-seven 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. By the time he died in 1862 in Hartford, Connecticut, he was one of the most famous men in nation, and one of the richest.

“Offering a panoramic view of American culture during Colt’s life” (LA Review of Books) Revolver is a “rollicking and informative account [that] will delight American history buffs” (Publishers Weekly). Americas Biographies & Memoirs Business Military Professionals & Academics United States Weapons Weapons & Warfare War Old West Wild West American History Latin America
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Exhaustive Research • Rich Historical Insight • First Rate Narrator • Brisk Pacing • Interesting Details • Great Job

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I now realized Sam Colt a Confederate sympathizer, a traitor of fact, and a devious business man

the Colt weapons which brought many too massacre

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Anyone interested in 19th Century US history will love this book. Rasenberger weaves the story of how Colt’s revolver revolutionized manufacturing with the ease and skill of William Manchester and David McCullough. An immensely informative and enjoyable read.

How a revolver changed the world.

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so many interesting aspects to this! It touches on Colts family, and many moving parts of history at the time

fun and interesting!

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The narrator does a great job, so no complaints there.
I do not doubt this author's skills as a scholar and researcher. He is also a good writer. However, I learned early on I was not going to care for his perspective. This is of course subjective, but it is noteworthy. He is pro Nicholas Biddle, in favor of the Second Bank of the United States, pro John Quincy Adams, anti-Andrew Jackson, pro Indian, anti-American settler, and thus naturally anti-entrepreneur. He is quick to make assertions and assumptions about Colt, and give unwarranted and unwanted commentary when it wasn't needed. It is baffling to me that someone could be a historian and dedicate so much of his life to studying a firearms manufacturer, only to hold him in contempt, as well as gun ownership as a whole. He ends the books with an inane diatribe about automatic weapons, and Sandy Hook. Pass.

If you are a leftist; go nuts. Maybe this is the book for you (although I doubt many leftists read history books.) If you are pro 2A, maybe find a different author about this subject. I won't say it's bad. There were interesting and well written parts for sure. The author was just not for me overall.

Solid Scholarship; Poor Perspective

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This book is well researched and scholarly, but still readable and entertaining. The author gives you an easy to follow chronology, filling it with well known and little known facts about Colt's life, his family and the development of his gun. Where sources are conflicting, he presents the known facts but lets the reader draw his/her own conclusions. Finally, in today's environment with strong sentiments about firearms, he deftly lays out the story without passing judgement.
A great read with a first rate narrator.

Outstanding history of Colt, his gun, & the time

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