I love the introduction to Tools of Violence:
Any book that focuses its entire subject matter on weapons skates on thin moral ice. There are two temptations, the first of which could be labeled “data worship.” Weapons are, for the most part, works of extremely advanced engineering that have a technical allure all of their own. Because of the extremity of the job they perform, they produce compelling facts and figures, ranging from muzzle velocities to explosive force, and these, when combined with the startling light and sound of their usage, can lead some to treat them with the same wide-eyed fascination as cars or space rockets, with lots of potential for dramatic trivia.
For instance, eating a large chocolate bar actually generates the same energy output as that created by propellant detonating behind a 105mm field artillery shell, the key difference being that the energy of the artillery shell is released in a few milliseconds, not over half an hour or so. For large chunks of the world’s population, principally male, that is a fascinating fact.
Touché, Tools of Violence. Touché.