Sometimes I wonder how I’d react if I was perusing an early-twentieth century newspaper and came across a URL in an advertisement. Maybe http://www.aerialgymnkhana.co.uk or http://www.hobadl.org.uk. I mean, there’s no physical reason why this couldn’t happen — all those characters existed back then. It’s just that arranging them in such a way would have made […]
Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards. Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007. 2nd edition. A standard text, in a new edition with a new chapter on one of my favourite films of the war, Millions Like Us. Note: review copy (not for Airminded).
Part of the methodology of the Mass-Observation project was the tracking of paranormal beliefs, perhaps a reflection of its anthropological inspiration. In War Begins at Home, published early in 1940 by Mass-Obs, the following article is reprinted from the December 1939 issue of Prediction (a magazine devoted to astrology, psychic powers and the like): ON
From Peter Stansky, The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 10: Bertrand Russell wrote in 1936 that when London was bombed it would be “one vast raving bedlam, the hospitals will be stormed, traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the city will
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] The 15th Military History Carnival has been posted at Cardinal Wolsey’s This Day In History. This time around, I’d like to contrast two styles of blog conversation. The first is at Crooked Timber, on the differing memories of the Great War in America and Europe, and the bearing this may
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Nick at Mercurius Politicus has an excellent post up on the The Mowing-devil, an English pamphlet from 1678 which is famous among forteans because it contains an illustration of something that looks a lot like a crop circle, three centuries before the term was coined. If it is an account
A poster from the 1935 general election, showing, quite literally, the shadow of the bomber. The National Government was a coalition comprising the Conservatives and two splinter parties, National Labour and the Liberal Nationals. With Stanley Baldwin at its head, the National Government went to the people on a platform of peace and prosperity. The
I was invited this week to take part in a ’round table’ discussion between Major Paul Moga (USAF), Professor James Arthur Mowbray (Air War College), and selected bloggers with an interest in aviation (including Scott Palmer of the Avia-Corner). I’m not sure the producers realised that I’m down under, but although the scheduled time for
Director Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge) has been working on a new film, called Australia. As the name perhaps suggests, it’s a sweeping saga of this wide, brown land of ours: the men who conquered it, the women who loved them, the cattle, the dust, the flies … well, it sounds pretty dull to
THE RAIDERS. A FLIGHT OF SEAPLANES SETTING OFF FOR A NIGHT BOMBING RAID. This one’s got me stumped. It shows a flight of RNAS twin-engined seaplane bombers, but I haven’t been able to find anything with the same profile. Any ideas? Image source: Harry Golding, ed., The Wonder Book of Aircraft for Boys and Girls
