Tommy, Karen Blumenthal
Tommy, Karen Blumenthal
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Tommy
The Gun That Changed America

Author: Karen Blumenthal

Narrator: Maggi-Meg Reed

Unabridged: 3 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/25/2020


Synopsis

The fascinating and topical nonfiction story of how one gun changed American courtrooms, streets, and homes, told for a YA audience by award-winning author Karen Blumenthal

John Taliaferro Thompson had a mission: to develop a lightweight, fast-firing weapon that would help Americans win on the battlefield. His Thompson submachine gun could deliver a hundred bullets in a matter of seconds―but didn't find a market in the U.S. military. Instead, the Tommy gun became the weapon of choice for a generation of bootleggers and bank-robbing outlaws, and became a deadly American icon. Following a bloody decade―and eighty years before the mass shootings of our own time―Congress moved to take this weapon off the streets, igniting a national debate about gun control.

Critically-acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal, author of Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History, and Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929, reveals the fascinating story of this famous and deadly weapon―of the lives it changed, the debate it sparked, and the unprecedented response it inspired in Tommy: The Gun That Changed America.

Praise for Tommy: The Gun that Changed America:

“The Thompson rapid-firing submachine gun is the crux of Blumenthal’s accessible social history, which encompasses military weaponry, gangster warfare, and gun-control legislation. . . . Engrossing and grisly.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Blumenthal’s fascinating biography of the weapon is most dramatic in its chapters on the famous gangsters. . . . A gripping look at guns, gangsters, and finding the ‘right balance between individual freedoms and community safety.'” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

About The Author

Karen Blumenthal is a long-time journalist who has written for both adults and young people. She previously wrote about the 1920s in Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929, which was a Sibert Honor Book; about social change in Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, which won a Jane Addams Children's Book Award; and most recently the biography Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different. She lives in Dallas, Texas.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alicia on August 11, 2015

Blumenthal created a very succinct, well-researched, easily-read narrative about the the invention of the Thompson submachine gun taking readers back to specific guns and their uses in war and on the streets before it's invention, who and why it was created, then how it affected history including th......more

Goodreads review by Richie on May 09, 2015

Richie’s Picks: TOMMY: THE GUN THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Karen Blumenthal, Roaring Brook, June 2015, 240p., ISBN: 978-1-62672-084-8 “Now as through this world I ramble I see lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six gun And some with a fountain pen. But as through your life you travel As through your......more

Goodreads review by Owen on May 09, 2017

It was good, It may get off topic, it may sound left, but it does to make a historical story about Vito's choice of weapon. Note to right the ending may sound left to you but it is true.......more

Goodreads review by Barb on January 11, 2016

I am massively opposed to guns in any way shape or form and am shocked at how interesting I found Tommy: The Gun That Changed America. I can only say this indicates the author is very skilled at storytelling. Tommy: The Gun That Changed America is a non-fiction history of the Tommy Gun. It was origin......more

Goodreads review by Kate on February 08, 2015

This is a well researched and thought provoking book that explores the history of the Tommy gun. The period pictures and considered use of primary images make this book a good resource. As I was reading it, two young men commented on it, drawn by the gorgeous cover and the history held in the Tommy......more