[Chivers] writes both with technical precision and the humanity that c — C. J. Chivers

"He is justly lauded as one of the finest war correspondents of his generation..."

"...aimed semiautomatic fire from a competent shooter can be far more dangerous than automatic fire, which is harder to control and is often inaccurate."

"A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia School of Journalism, Chivers is often referred to as the best war correspondent of his generation. The 2017 prize for feature writing is the second Pulitzer for Chivers; he won in 2009 as part of a team of NY Times reporters honored for their dispatches from Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is also the author of "The Gun," a historical work."

"As Ismay finished his service commitment with the Navy in 2010, he read a New York Times piece detailing the complex origins of weapons found inside a Taliban gun locker. He then began corresponding with C. J. Chivers, the paper’s longtime conflict and arms reporter who wrote the piece. Ismay calls him Chris, but for seven years ending in 1994, he was Captain Chivers, a Marine infantry officer who served in the Gulf War."

"We know this because of the work of C. J. Chivers of The New York Times, also a frequent contributor to Esquire, whose expertise in ballistics and battlefield tactics—and nearly unprecedented experience reporting from war zones—has made him the most important war correspondent of his time...A former Marine officer, he might know how to handle himself in a war zone, the paper figured. What the Times could not have known was that Chivers would develop a brand of journalism unique in the world for, among other things, its study of the weapons we use to kill one another. After reporting on a firefight—whether he was in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Ossetia, Libya, or Syria—hed look for shell casings and ordnance fragments. If he was embedded with American soldiers or Marines, hed ask them if he could look through what they had found for an hour or so—"finger fucking," hed call it—and ask his photographer to take pictures of ammunition stamps and serial numbers. Over time and in this way he would reveal a vast world of small-arms trade and secret trafficking that no other journalist had known existed before."

"This is a fascinating story, and Chivers, a New York Times writer, tells it very well. He exploits his firearms expertise and combat experience as a Marine officer and later war correspondent to explain how the arcane science of ballistics and weapons design has impacted on the battlefields of the world. My only regret about his work is that he has superimposed upon the history of the contest between the AK-47 and M-16 a wider examination of the history of machine guns, which seems an unnecessary diversion...Chivers has written the best book so far about what is probably the most influential weapons system of our times."