Quite some time ago I promised to write more about J. M. Spaight’s Volcano Island (published in 1943 but written late in 1942). I probably should do that at some point. Such as now. Here I want to look at what he has to say about area bombing. He quite unapologetically uses this phrase, even […]
Having updated my list of online early 20th century British newspapers, I have mostly good news to report. The most exciting development comes from Wales. I have previously lamented the total lack of digitised Welsh newspapers from the period 1901-1950, and it appears that in large part the reason for this is that the National
In May 1909, the three major organisations promoting aviation in Britain, the Aeronautical Society, the Aero Club, and the newly-formed Aerial League, announced that they would henceforth coordinate their efforts. The Aerial League would be recognised as ‘the paramount body for patriotic movements and for education’, the Aeronautical Society ‘the paramount scientific authority on aeronautical
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] I recently came across what appear to be two bad books from what are two good publishers. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that — these things happen, a lot of books get published on military history and they can’t all be good. But it turns out that the
I’ve updated my list of online British newspaper archives. This time, the new titles are: Aberdeen Journal AJR Information Catholic Herald Connacht Sentinel Cork Examiner Jewish Chronicle Irish Press Irish Times Kilkenny People Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser Nenagh News Northants Evening Telegraph The Post/Sunday Post (Dundee) Sligo Champion Sowerby Bridge News Many of these
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] (Or, ‘Trenchard at sea’.) Jamel Ostwald’s recent post on urban bombardment in the early modern period, itself partly a response to my post on Trenchardism, prompted me to wonder how straight the line was between aerial bombardment and earlier naval and land bombardments? Was the naval precedent more
So, to wrap up this accidental series. To check whether professional astronomical journals displayed the same patterns in discussing ‘Mars’ and ‘canals’ as the more popular/amateur ones I again looked at the peak decade 1891-1900, this time selecting only the more serious, respected journals. However, because of the French problem I had to exclude L’Astronomie
In my post about the lingering scientific interest in the Martian canals hypothesis after 1909, I said that there was a problem with journal coverage. What do I mean by this? Have a look: This is a repeat of the first plot in the previous post, showing the number of articles published in peer-reviewed astronomical
In a recent, hmm, let’s call it a discussion resulting from an old post I wrote about the US Air Force’s one-time interesting in mapping Mars, I tried to assess how scientific interest in the Martian canals hypothesis lingered after the early 20th century, and said I would run up some figures to illustrate the
It was less than two months ago that my peer-reviewed article ‘The shadow of the airliner: commercial bombers and the rhetorical destruction of Britain, 1917-1935’ was accepted by Twentieth Century British History, but it’s already available online, thanks to the journal’s advance access policy. (So while the article has been typeset, the page numbers are
