Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology Through History

From rocks and arrows to the V2 and the rocket, man has been driven to dominate the world around him, including other humans, by throwing missiles. This lighthearted and interesting book begins in the Pliocene when man became his worst enemy and shows how well-suited the human body is to running and throwing. Missiles became more sophisticated during the Upper Palaeolithic and Crosby ponders whether our developed skill as game hunters had anything to do with the mass extinctions of the Late Pleistocene. Much of the book conside the weapon technology of the Middle Ages, in particular the trebuchet, and the significance of the spread of gunpowder from China. Finally Crosby discusses the development of the bomb and the longest throw' which has carried man into Space.