IT was Mao Tse-tung who said that power grew out of the barrel of a gun and it was Russian inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov who made his prophecy come true.

Since it was first produced in 1947, this cheap, effective, ultra-reliable and idiot-proof gun has been used on battlefields around the world, has been seen as the ultimate weapon of liberation and revolution and has become a cultural, if deadly, icon. Michael Hodgson not only looks at its tactical and strategic impact, but demonstrates its human effect by talking to the likes of Sudanese child soldiers who suddenly had the power of life or death at their fingertips.