Chris McNab

Deadly Force: Firearms and American Law Enforcement, from the Wild West to the Streets of Today by Chris McNab describes the history of the use of guns by police throughout American history. This is published by Osprey. Before this my experience with them was solely based on the various short heavily illustrated titles on different military topics. This is 300 pages with only 2 photo inserts and not a 3D computer generated map in sight. McNab argues convincingly that throughout time there's show more been increasing professionalism and militarization of police use of force. The development of swat teams in the 1960s and 1970s specifically. He sometimes gets bogged down in describing events. In the introduction he claims that he's just going to give the facts without moral judgments. Unfortunately he repeatedly does exactly that. Defending police use of force by pointing out that they were scared. Strangely he doesn't consider that this also extends to the other individual involved. This is certainly not the last word on the topic but it is an interesting place to start.

Recommended.

Note:This book was provided through Librarything's early reviewer Program. show less

Abandoned World War II Aircraft, Tanks and Warships by Chris McNab is a fascinating tour of many deserted artifacts and, when known, a bit about them.

I have to admit that I love both abandoned places (urban and rural, war related or not) and old neglected or forgotten items. So this book suits my interests very well. The additional benefit of being focused on a historical event, WWII, makes it that much better.

The captions accompanying the photographs constitute the vast majority of the show more information, which works very well since this is less a narrative type of work than episodic. The photographs are very good, ranging from fairly close shots that highlight the decay of the piece of equipment to long range shots that place an item in a bigger picture. I tend to create stories around these things, both when viewing in a book and when I visit such places. These photographs gave me more than enough context to really try to inhabit the scene.

I would highly recommend to readers who enjoy visual explorations of the detritus of war as well as how nature, and sometimes the human element, can incorporate such items of destruction into a new living present.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

I received an ARC from the publisher through the Early Readers Program. There were a number of typos that I trust will be fixed when the book is sent to press.

Deadly Force is a very solid historical survey of the police use of deadly force, particularly firearms, in the United States.

Author Chris McNab provides a chronological look at the subject, showing how the use of force by law enforcement evolved with the changing nature of law enforcement from the Civil War era through today.

He does a show more good job of balancing data, studies and statistics with historical examples. While accessible to the average reader, it is clearly intended for a criminal justice audience.

The book is very even handed, presenting both the police perspective and the civil liberties perspective. Examples are given both of the challenges faced by police in use of force situations, controversies over the use of force, and of cases where the use of force was both excessive and necessary.

The book is thorough, interesting and informative. Highly recommended for those with an interest in how police use of force has evolved and in the realities and controversies surrounding the issue.

The book's main weakness is that there are insufficient conclusions as to where the philosophy and standards of the use of force and the militarization of police need to evolve in the future. I did not think enough space was devoted to the changes in police use of force following the 911 terrorist attack. These issues are too current for the historical perspective that McNab brought to less contemporary policing issues. show less

A competent if routine 'coffee table' book for military history buffs, and very well-presented with great photographs and illustrations. It was because of this quality that I felt suckered into buying it on one foray into Waterstones, even though I prefer uniqueness and flair in my reading material and was aware of the usual limitations of Osprey books in this regard.

Author Chris McNab provides a brief overview of 100 weapons throughout human history, from flint axes through to Reaper show more drones, and charts the considerable progress man has made in killing other men over the millennia. There are no real surprises among McNab's choices for the 100 weapons to chart this progress, though I wish each entry had been a bit longer. Each weapon is given only three or four pages maximum, on short A6-ish size pages (at about 6 inches x 6 inches), including some full-page photographs. Consequently, McNab only has about four paragraphs to summarise each weapon and tell us its historical impact.

That said, I do have some opinions on the choices, as you would expect from any source that presents a list-based selection. It is quite top-heavy, focusing on 20th-century developments. This is perhaps understandable due to the massive technological leaps forward and the increasing specialization/professionalization of military forces, and my point here is more a continuation of my criticism of the book's brevity: I wanted to know more about pre-modern military cultures than the vagaries of 'the chariot' or 'the bow'. I was also surprised that there was no entry on napalm or the sniper rifle or the Winchester repeater (I'm sure more examples will come to me later), but I suppose '100' is a nice, round number. And considering the book ended with the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles), why not be even bolder and include cyber-warfare entries like the Stuxnet virus?

Particularly in the 20th-century choices onward, it is also rather US-centric. Again, this is understandable considering the United States' wealth and the size of its military industry and development, but sometimes it seems unnecessary. For example, McNab notes that it was the Russian BMP-1 which changed the game" for armoured personnel carriers (pg. 364), but instead of having the BMP as one of his choices, chooses instead to note this influence in the entry for the later M2/M3 Bradley, a US vehicle. Furthermore, some of these 20th-century entries are also dangerously close to just being a list of various technical specifications and impenetrable acronyms.

Nevertheless, all told it was an interesting book to quickly browse through. It is, after all, a so-called 'coffee table' book and, seen from that correct perspective, it fulfils its remit admirably." show less