How might we break a 500 year cycle of American violence? America as a nation was built upon, enshrines, and runs on gunpower. From the original founding of the US to its present economic life, from its interventions abroad to its struggles at home, guns are everywhere. Without guns, the original territorial seizures and ethnic cleansing of the North American continent would never have been possible, nor would the institution of chattel slavery. Without guns, the policing required for America's capitalist industrialization would have been unthinkable, and so too would have been its ascent as a global military power and foremost arms dealer. Guns are the only object to be named in America's founding legal documents. Today, Americans own some 40% of all guns on the planet. Gunpower is, quite literally, constitutional to the American enterprise. Weaving together narrative history with contemporary politics, Gunpower offers a unique vision of America's past, present, and future in relation to gun violence and gun control. Rejecting the reductive distinctions between "pro-gun" and "anti-gun," Democrat and Republican, Gunpower cuts through deadlocked debates to offer an account of what lies at the heart of the matter: the operations of power that America's gun saturation sustains. For those tired of the predictable cycles of horror, outrage, and resignation that have defined American debates over guns, Gunpower offers a vital toolkit for navigating a new landscape of protest, organizing, and political possibility.

How might we break a 500 year cycle of American violence? America as a nation was built upon, enshrines, and runs on gunpower. From the original founding of the US to its present economic life, from its interventions abroad to its struggles at home, guns are everywhere. Without guns, the original territorial seizures and ethnic cleansing of the North American continent would never have been possible, nor would the institution of chattel slavery. Without guns, the policing required for America's capitalist industrialization would have been unthinkable, and so too would have been its ascent as a global military power and foremost arms dealer. Guns are the only object to be named in America's founding legal documents. Today, Americans own some 40% of all guns on the planet. Gunpower is, quite literally, constitutional to the American enterprise. Weaving together narrative history with contemporary politics, Gunpower offers a unique vision of America's past, present, and future in relation to gun violence and gun control. Rejecting the reductive distinctions between "pro-gun" and "anti-gun," Democrat and Republican, Gunpower cuts through deadlocked debates to offer an account of what lies at the heart of the matter: the operations of power that America's gun saturation sustains. For those tired of the predictable cycles of horror, outrage, and resignation that have defined American debates over guns, Gunpower offers a vital toolkit for navigating a new landscape of protest, organizing, and political possibility.

"New Liberty City, 2134. Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the country's remaining forty-five states (five have been submerged under the ocean) between them: Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf. There are nine supercities within the continental US, and New Liberty City is the only amalgamated city split between the two megacorps, and thus at a perpetual state of civil war as the feeds broadcast the atrocities committed by each side. Here, Mallory streams Stellaxis's wargame SecOps on BestLife, spending more time jacked in than in the world just to eke out a hardscrabble living from tips. When a chance encounter with one of the game's rare super-soldiers leads to a side job for Mal - looking to link an actual missing girl to one of the SecOps characters. Mal's sudden burst in online fame rivals her deepening fear of what she is uncovering about BestLife's developer, and puts her in the kind of danger she's only experienced through her avatar."--Publisher's description

How gunpowder technology exploded heroes, heroics, and war stories from 1400 to 1700, and how German writers tried to glue them back together

Whether playing at defending their own castle or simply chucking pumpkins over a fence, wannabe marauders and tinkerers will become fast acquainted with Ludgar, the War Wolf, Ill Neighbor, Cabulus, and the Wild Donkey—ancient artillery devices known commonly as catapults. Building these simple yet sophisticated machines introduces fundamentals of math and physics using levers, force, torsion, tension, and traction. Instructions and diagrams illustrate how to build seven authentic working model catapults, including an early Greek ballista, a Roman onager, and the apex of catapult technology, the English trebuchet. Additional projects include learning how to lash and make rope and how to construct and use a hand sling and a staff sling. The colorful history of siege warfare is explored through the stories of Alexander the Great and his battle of Tyre; Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and the Third Crusade; pirate-turned-soldier John Crabbe and his ship-mounted catapults; and Edward I of England and his battle against the Scots at Stirling Castle.