Acquisitions

Peter Adey. Aerial Life: Spaces, Mobilities, Affects. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. The title isn't very revealing of its contents. But here's a partial list of the topics covered: airminded youth groups such as the Air Defence Cadet Corps and the Skybird League (chapter 2), air shows including Hendon (chapter 3), the birth of aerial surveying (chapter 4), RAF pilot selection techniques (chapter 5), wartime experiments on the effects of bomb-blast on buildings and bodies (chapter 6), the effectiveness of ARP drills (chapter 7). There is even room for scareships! While it is framed as cultural geography the history looks solid and this book should interest anyone interested in British airmindedness.

Susan R. Grayzel. At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. As will this one, which is even closer to my own particular interests. In fact the topic is broadly that of my PhD thesis and my book; and if it had been published ten or even five years ago I probably would have picked something else to do! Having said that, I think our approaches are sufficiently different not to make my book redundant: at first glance, hers is more cultural history with some political history, mine is more intellectual history with some cultural history. Plus, mine has scareships. Still, I'm both looking forward to and dreading reading this...

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2 thoughts on “Acquisitions

  1. The Grayzel book sounds interesting. It will be interesting to compare it to your own work. Always interesting to see how 2 historians deal with a similar issue.

    Ross

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