1920s

1920s, Games and simulations, Periodicals

The Raider

Yet another British war game to add to the pile, this one from 1922: The Raider. A copy of a new game called “The Raider” has been received from Enstone and Lilienfeld, of 47, Berners Street, W.1. The game consists of a large sheet divided into squares, the whole showing a view of a battle-front

1920s, Australia, Periodicals

The IWM and memory

In my recent post on the Imperial War Museum I remarked upon the commemorative function of the museum, or rather the apparent lack of it. So I was interested to come across this comment made in 1922 by Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice (he of the Maurice Affair), explaining what he thought the true value of

1910s, 1920s, 1930s, After 1950, Australia, Cold War, Ephemera, Games and simulations, Maps, Periodicals, Pictures, Travel 2007

War games

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] One interesting minor theme of my recent museum visits here in London has been, I suppose, the popular origins of wargames (as opposed to the intellectual origins): I’ve been coming across a number of games, produced in the first half of the twentieth century and aimed presumably at children, which

1910s, 1920s, Books, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Travel 2007

The lodgings of the damned

Actually, that should be “The lodgings of the compiler of the damned”, but it’s more dramatic this way. 39 Marchmont St, Bloomsbury, WC1, just a few blocks from my own lodgings. The word “unprepossessing” could have been coined in honour of this building,1 and there are certainly many far more pleasing buildings too look at

1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Books, Periodicals

The Douhet dilemma

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] I haven’t written much about General Giulio Douhet, the Italian prophet of airpower whose name is — almost — synonymous with strategic bombing. His 1921 (revised edition, 1927) book Il dominio dell’aria (usually translated as The Command of the Air) is one of the most definitive expressions of airpower extremism

1920s, Before 1900, Other, Periodicals

Bad memes

Chain letters are a kind of meme, but not a good kind — inane, threatening, pointless. They are surprisingly venerable and ubiqitous, however. Many past cultures had some form of chain letter, generally claimed to be communications from a god. In medieval and early modern Europe, these “messages from heaven” seem to have been fairly

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