Somehow I missed this interesting review by Max Boot of C.J. Chivers’ book on the Kalashnikov rifle, the only gun in history to be included on a country’s flag (Mozambique) and even home furnishings.

What made the Kalashnikov the winner in a global arms race that has been going on for more than 60 years was how it performed in the field. The very fact that its parts were “loose fitting, rather than snug” meant that it was “less likely to jam when dirty, inadequately lubricated or clogged with carbon from heavy firing.” “It was so reliable,” Chivers writes, that even when it was “soaked in bog water and coated with sand” its Soviet testers “had trouble making it jam.”