No need to bother with John Ellis’ new book. But by all means read the title.

The Social History of the Machine Gun By John Ellis Pantheon, 186 pp., $12.95 A flare has stagelit the battlefield. Out there, out in no man’s land, John Ellis lies helpless, pinned down by his own intellectual crossfire. Not me, I’m not crawling from my pleasant trench to pull him off the barbed wire; it’s great fun hearing Ellis shriek for help from either side, both sides, anyone. The machine gun, Ellis will tell you, stands as a synecdoche of our murderous, impersonal age. Fair enough; perceptive enough; worth maybe a B—. But having isolated that image, Ellis goes into rapid decline. His title is somewhat better than his book.

The usual highly charged sentences appear: “Thus, if it is only natural that an American should have the tools and the know-how to make the finest machine gun, it is equally logical that it should be someone from that country who would actually want to turn killing into a matter of turning a crank or depressing a button.” Now, no one can like, machine guns. No one could say that they had improved the quality of life. Ellis, an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-war liberal, surely can’t afford to like them. On the other hand, there are irritating problems. Resistance to machine warfare came from landed, aristocratic elements in the military, from Alfred E. Neuman types like Generals Haig and French. Now, no one can like landed, aristocratic imbeciles. Ellis surely can’t afford to. “Machines had brought with them industrialization and the destruction of the traditional social order; they must not be allowed to undermine the old certainties of the battlefield—the glorious charge and the opportunities for individual heroism. The machine gun threatened to do just this.” Ellis suggests that World War I was lost—or prolonged—on the playing fields of Eton. He cocks a snook at the incumbent military leaders. Their guns were equipped only with hindsights: cavalry, the bayonet, personal heroism. True, but they also despised, as being in bad taste, the cruel overkill of technological war. Whom is Ellis for? The gun? Colonel Blimp? Both? Neither? Ellis’ prejudices fly back, on the ricochet, to enfilade his own position.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.

Featured Tags

The Social History of the Machine Gun By John Ellis Pantheon, 186 pp., $12.95 A flare has stagelit the battlefield. Out there, out in no man’s land, John Ellis lies helpless, pinned down by his own intellectual crossfire. Not me, I’m not crawling from my pleasant trench to pull him off the barbed wire; it’s great fun hearing Ellis shriek for help from either side, both sides, anyone. The machine gun, Ellis will tell you, stands as a synecdoche of our murderous, impersonal age. Fair enough; perceptive enough; worth maybe a B—. But having isolated that image, Ellis goes into rapid decline. His title is somewhat better than his book.

The usual highly charged sentences appear: “Thus, if it is only natural that an American should have the tools and the know-how to make the finest machine gun, it is equally logical that it should be someone from that country who would actually want to turn killing into a matter of turning a crank or depressing a button.” Now, no one can like, machine guns. No one could say that they had improved the quality of life. Ellis, an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-war liberal, surely can’t afford to like them. On the other hand, there are irritating problems. Resistance to machine warfare came from landed, aristocratic elements in the military, from Alfred E. Neuman types like Generals Haig and French. Now, no one can like landed, aristocratic imbeciles. Ellis surely can’t afford to. “Machines had brought with them industrialization and the destruction of the traditional social order; they must not be allowed to undermine the old certainties of the battlefield—the glorious charge and the opportunities for individual heroism. The machine gun threatened to do just this.” Ellis suggests that World War I was lost—or prolonged—on the playing fields of Eton. He cocks a snook at the incumbent military leaders. Their guns were equipped only with hindsights: cavalry, the bayonet, personal heroism. True, but they also despised, as being in bad taste, the cruel overkill of technological war. Whom is Ellis for? The gun? Colonel Blimp? Both? Neither? Ellis’ prejudices fly back, on the ricochet, to enfilade his own position.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.