Ford. Dell. Glock? Actually, yes. Because this Austrian gun manufacturer has become so deeply embedded in modern American culture that Gaston Glock's name has been synonymous with "gun" to a whole generation. Paul M. Barrett's book, Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, is a compulsively readable story about this cultural icon and its inventor. It offers a fascinating view into a world that many of us know nothing about.

The Glock wasn't always America's go-to gun. Twenty-five years ago, when John Rutherford, now Jacksonville's sheriff, saw his first Glock 17, he said, "What the heck is this? It's plastic!" The gun was fundamentally different from its competitors: uglier, certainly, but also lighter, simpler, more reliable, and cheaper. These features, along with some effective marketing and a fair amount of luck, helped make it the right gun for many, many law enforcement agencies -- and soon afterward, for civilians as well.

Barrett uncovers a classic example of what Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen called "The Innovator's Dilemma." Glock, a radiator and knife manufacturer, was arguably in the right place and the right time when the Austrian military was seeking to upgrade its arsenal in 1980. Glock, who didn't know enough about guns to know what a gun designer couldn't do, was able to rethink the whole structure and manufacturing process. As a result, he built "a better mousetrap."

Of course, winning over people who mythologized American firearms from Colt and Smith & Wesson to a plastic, foreign-made pistol didn't just happen. The company used some savvy marketing efforts, from Hollywood product placement and clever trade-in programs to the wining and dining of law enforcement officers at the Gold Club, Atlanta's famed strip club. An effective legal and legislative strategy, which allowed the company to pivot quickly when facing threats from product liability suits or negative publicity after a massacre involving Glock guns, helped too.

As one character testifies, "(Gaston) Glock is no Snow White." Barrett lets us peer inside the closely held company in all its glory and with all its warts. Glock's friendships with neo-Nazis, his complex ownership structures designed to evade taxes, and some seriously strange personnel practices make the company's success even more improbable.

Is Glock's success good for America? The answer may depend on whether you are a passionate devotee of the Second Amendment or a gun control advocate (and I admit to being the latter). Barrett manages to avoid choosing sides, but he does propose some weapon restrictions that might represent some common ground between the two camps. Either way, Glock gives us insight into the peculiar characters that thoroughly reshaped a modern industry, often in spite of themselves.