This exciting, graphic history of firearms is quite unlike any other book on the subject. It approaches the evolution of firearms not as a series of mechanical developments, but as a historical process of five centuries with profound effects on Western civilization. Illustrating the book is a unique collection of more than 180 woodcuts, etchings, engravings, and drawings (in addition to more than 200 photographs of actual weapons) which the author has gathered from sources dating from 1475 to the present.