So this was the week I finally broke down and bought some books -- I made it nearly a month in London without being forced to, thanks to Skoob Books and the Imperial War Museum. I am only human, it turns out.

Norman Angell. The Great Illusion -- Now. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. A Penguin Special (still in dust jacket!) update of the 1908 classic (which is included in an abridged form), arguing that war still isn't any good for anyone. In part, because of the knock-out blow ...

Norman Franks. Air Battle for Dunkirk: 26 May-3 June 1940. London: Grub Street, 2006 [1983]. I don't read a lot of operational histories; but treating Dunkirk on its own terms (and not just as the prelude to the Battle of Britain) seems like a worthwhile project. For that matter a history of the RAF up to May or June 1940 would be interesting too.

Graham Keech. Pozières. Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1998. I don't know that I'll make it over to Flanders to see where John Joseph Mulqueeney fought and died, but if not I can at least read about it.

London Can Take It! The British Home Front at War. DD Home Entertainment, 2006. Wartime propaganda on DVD, mainly focused around the experience of bombing, including of course London Can Take It!.

Nicholas Rankin. Telegram from Guernica: The Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent. London: Faber and Faber, 2004. Steer's report on Guernica is still famous, but he also reported on the Italian use of airpower against the Abyssinians.

Wesley K. Wark. The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1933-1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. One of those books cited by everyone, which I've never seen before now!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://airminded.org/copyright/.