Ten years ago today, Carl Sagan died. He had been a hero of mine since childhood, since I first watched Cosmos. I would kick the rest of the family out of the lounge room, close the door, turn off the lights, pull the beanbag up to the TV as close as possible, and let Carl […]
Forgot to write this yesterday … I blame the pre-Xmas social round! Both of these were bought after being seen elsewhere (at least the author was, in the latter case). Simon Garfield. We Are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times. London: Ebury Press, 2006. Drawn from the Mass-Observation archives, covering
Frederick Lanchester was a clever British engineer. He was one of the pioneers of the British automotive industry, but his main interest was in aviation, particularly aerodynamic theory. In my opinion, he has a good claim to be the first person to elucidate the knock-out blow concept, in his book Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn
Anthony Eden at a United Nations Association rally at the Albert Hall, 1 March 1947: Mr. EDEN and M. JAN MASARYK, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, were the other principal speakers. Of international affairs, Mr. EDEN said: “Our planet has become very small. We are nearer to San Francisco to-day than we were to Paris 100 years
Orac responds to me … sort of: Orac paused, his lights blinking, patterns ever changing. It was almost as though he were thinking, if such a thing were possible by a computer. Then he went on, “Of course, as much as I’ve defended Dawkins before against similarly spurious uses of the Hitler analogy, now that
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] I’ve been reading Joseph Corn’s The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation, 1900-1950, a classic study of airminded culture in the United States — which was very different to that in Britain. The “winged gospel” is the term used by Corn to describe an intense complex of hopes and expectations
Duff Cooper. The Duff Cooper Diaries, 1915-1951. London: Phoenix, 2006. Nobleman, socialite, Conservative MP, Cabinet Minister, anti-appeaser, and apparently a fine diarist too. Edited by his son, John Julius Norwich. Adam Tooze. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. London: Allen Lane, 2006. I’ve heard good things about this book.
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Two deadlines expire shortly. If you were intending to meet them, your time is fast running out! One is for nominations for the 2006 Cliopatria Awards, for the best bits of the historioblogosphere this past year. Nominations close on 30 November. Collectively, my R&D associates have done well. Revise and
This is odd: To my readers, then, let me explain again that a pursuit plane should not carry out any pursuing. It should be a machine designed for fighting. It should have the qualities of fast climb, reasonable manœuvrability and gun-power. It should be simple in design and cheap to produce, because it will take
Arthur Harris. Bomber Offensive. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military Classics, 2005 [1947]. It’s that man again! And his memoirs. William Mitchell. Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power — Economic and Military. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1988 [1925]. Mitchell was not hugely influential in Britain, other than for bombing the Ostfriesland and, to
