- pt. 1. Origins
- The birth of machine guns
- Machine guns in action
- Hiram Maxim changes war
- Slaughter made industrial : the Great War
- pt. 2. Invention and distribution
- Stalin's contest : the creation of the AK-47
- The breakout : mass-production, distribution, and early use of the AK-47
- pt. 3. Aftermath ; consequences of the AK-47's global spread
- The accidental rifle
- Everyman's gun
- Epilogue : the twentieth-first century's rifle.