Peter J. Bowler. A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. An excellent survey of the way that the future was imagined in the public sphere, mostly in Britain and mostly in the first half of the 20th century. The title suggests a focus on science fiction authors, but Bowler also looks at the influence of experts. And there's a whole chapter on aviation and another on war.

Clare Brant. Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination in Britain, 1783-1786. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2017. A fascinating look at the cultural importance of balloonmania: spectacle, literature, fashion, the sublime and aeronationalism. Needs a sequel!

Fernando Esposito. Fascism, Aviation and Mythical Modernity. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. A much-needed analysis of the relationship between fascism and aviation, in both Italy and Germany (perhaps with an emphasis on the former, which is about right). Add in 'mythical modernity' and I'm sold.

David Hall. Worktown: The Astonishing Story of the 1930s Project that Launched Mass-Observation. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016. Worktown was where Mass-Observation started, in fact even before it was Mass-Observation. Weaves together the progress, difficulties and findings of the project itself with a portrait of Bolton and of the observers themselves, including the somewhat difficult Tom Harrisson.

Adam Hochschild. To End All Wars: A Story of Protest and Patriotism in the First World War.. London: Pan Books, 2012. I know too little about the reaction against the war, or rather what I do know is very piecemeal. Hopefully this will help.

Stephen Morillo with Michael F. Pavkovic. What is Military History?. Cambridge and Medford: Polity, 2018. Third edition. Looking forward to finding out what military history is!

Chris Northcott. MI5 at War, 1909-1918: How MI5 Foiled the Spies of the Kaiser in the First World War. Ticehurst: Tattered Flag Press, 2015. As the title suggests, takes a less sceptical view of the German spy menace than do Thomas Boghardt or Nicholas Hiley (or myself). Nevertheless very useful, not least for tracing the wartime name and function changes of the Secret Service Bureau/MO5/MI5 and its various branches!

John Andreas Olsen (ed.). A History of Air Warfare. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010. With authors like Freedman, Overy, Mason, Stephens, Corum, and so on, this textbook is solid in more than the physical sense. It's aimed at potential practioners as much as history students: around two-fifths of the text is on the period since 1990.

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