Noel Pemberton Billing
A new biographical note on the right-wing aviator and politician Noel Pemberton Billing, who helped turn Britain’s air defences (or lack thereof) into a burning political issue in 1916 and 1917.
Biographies
Acquisitions, Books
Acquisitions
David Butler and Gareth Butler. Twentieth-Century British Political Facts, 1900-2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Eighth edition. The bible. Well, a bible, anyway. Zara Steiner. The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. If this is up to the standards of her Britain and the Origins of the First World War,
Thesis
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
One of my current tasks is to define an hypothesis. This is the question that I will be seeking to answer in my thesis, and so it’s what my research will revolve around. It’s not an easy thing to do. I know what I’d like to research, but you don’t get a PhD for just
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting
Linkage
Some nice things were said about Airminded at Blog Them Out of the Stone Age and Early Modern Notes. Thanks guys, and welcome to any visitors who have found their way here from those estimable sites.
Acquisitions, Books
Acquisitions
John Robert Ferris. Men, Money, and Diplomacy: The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919-1926. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. A key reference on a somewhat neglected period. Boris Ford, ed. The Cambridge Cultural History. Volume 8: Early 20th Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Because I need more culture! Peter Lewis. The British
1910s, Links, Pictures
Pictures!
Check out Rosebud’s WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive for thousands of wonderful contemporary images of pre-1920 aircraft. Here are a couple, particularly relevant to my interests. According to the caption, these are the Zeppelins “L 13, L 12, and L 10 on a bombing mission” – clearly taken from a fourth Zeppelin. If this
Contemporary
Katrina’s knock-out blow
When you are writing a thesis, nearly everything starts to look relevant to your topic. Unfortunately, that’s the case with the unfolding tragedy in New Orleans. Although it was a natural disaster, not man-made, and involved wind and water, not fire and gas, what Katrina did to New Orleans is something very like what the
1930s, Books
The Shadow of the Bomber
Uri Bialer. The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Politics, 1932-1939. London: Royal Historical Society, 1980. A brief book but an important one: as far as I am aware, it is the only one to specifically focus on the fear of air attack, as opposed to air policy generally. Bialer
Aircraft, Civil aviation, Links
Airships and airliners
A couple of extremely informative websites I’ve just come across: Airshipsonline, home of the Airship Heritage Trust, dealing with most British airships since 1900 (wot, no Willows airships?); and Imperial Airways, home of the HP 42 project, which aims to build a flying replica of the British Handley Page 42 “Hannibal” biplane airliner of the
Blogging, tweeting and podcasting, Books
Trench Fever
A new First World War blog has appeared, Trench Fever. It’s by Dan Todman, a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. It promises to be very meaty! He also has a new book out called The First World War: Myth and Memory, which looks like one I should read. Well – don’t they all?