This first major biography of John Moses Browning, “the Thomas Edison of guns,” brings to life a visionary inventor whose astonishing array of firearms have shaped American culture and armed the world’s militaries for more than a century.

From his workbench in Utah, where he was born in 1855, Browning invented firearms that ranged from single-shot rifles to five-foot long aerial machine guns. He invented the modern semi-automatic pistol and the first successful pump-action shotgun. His lever-action rifles are legendary. Tens of millions of Browning firearms have been sold world-wide.

Browning died in 1926, yet his inventions from decades earlier proved decisive in World War II, starting at the Battle of Britain and ending with the defeat of Imperial Japan. Browning machine guns armed every American and British fighter plane and bomber.  American infantry units in Europe and the Pacific fought with his tripod-mounted machine gun, his Model 1911 pistol and the Browning Automatic Rifle. His firearms are still used in the 21st century.

Browning possessed a remarkable gift for thinking in three dimensions. He never used blueprints. While competitors in the 19th and  20th centuries struggled to create one or two successful firearms, Browning, assisted by brothers Matt and Ed, became the genius behind arms makers Winchester, Colt and Remington. Largely unknown in America until the last decade of his life, his work in Belgium had already made him a household name in Europe.

Browning’s story is the story of modern firearms, for good and ill.