John D. Anderson, Jr. The Airplane: A History of its Technology. Reston: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2002. As an aviation historian I should have some understanding of the technology of flight, and this seems a more enjoyable avenue into the subject than some dry textbook. It’s a bit US-centric, though that’s justifiable to […]
Antony Beevor. Crete: The Battle and the Resistance. London: John Murray, 2005 [1991]. More family history stuff. I thought The Battle for Spain was very good, so hopefully this is of the same calibre.
R. A. Saville-Sneath. Aircraft Recognition. London: Penguin, 2006 [1941]. Sometimes I think publishers bring out books just for me! This is a cute little facsimile reprint of a wartime Penguin Special guide for aircraft spotters, complete with silhouettes, glossary, identifying features, and so on; everything from Albacores to Wirraways. I’ve been inspired to set up
Two big-picture histories this week … David Edgerton. The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. An anti-heroic history of technology, which bids fair to puncture assumptions that higher tech necessarily is better tech, or that the rate of technological change is ever-increasing (take that, singularitarians!)
Adrian Gilbert. POW: Allied Prisoners in Europe, 1939-1945. London: John Murray, 2006. Due to recent findings, a subject I’d like to know more about. (Over and above the thorough grounding I’ve received from watching The Great Escape, Hogan’s Heroes, etc.) Not to be confused with the celebrated author of The Mayan Prophecies and The Cosmic
Frank Furedi. Culture of Fear Revisited. London and New York: Continuum, 2006. 4th edition. The sociology of fear, including that of terrorism. A well-timed chance discovery for me, as my current chapter is about fear, and the mass media’s role in propagating (and amplifying, if not creating) it.
L. E. O. Charlton. The Royal Air Force and U.S.A.A.F. from July 1943 to September 1944. London: Hutchinson & Co., n.d. [1944?]. I didn’t know of this book by Charlton. It’s a chronology of the air war, with hundreds of great photos; looks like writing these kept Charlton gainfully employed during the war. Jörg Friedrich.
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
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.
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
