It has happened before that while I’m focused on some research topic but read something seemingly unrelated, that unanticipated connections serendipitously appear between the two. In this case it was while reading a collection of short stories by Arthur Machen, an influential writer of supernatural horror who wrote his greatest, and most disturbing, works in […]
Claudia Baldoli and Andrew Knapp. Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy under Allied Air Attack, 1940-1945. London and New York: Continuum, 2012. Ask and ye shall receive! This is a groundbreaking book, as far as the English language is concerned: I know of no other treatments of the bombing of either France or Italy at this
William Feaver. James Boswell: Unofficial War Artist. London: Muswell Press, 2007. A few months ago Ruth Boswell emailed me about the Sudeten crisis posts I wrote in connect with a film script and novel she is working on. It turns out that not only was she the producer of the classic 70s SF show The
Like Gaul and probably some other things, my mystery aeroplanes paper will be divided into three parts: An overview of the 1918 Australian mystery aeroplane scare itself. The immediate historical context which helps explain the scare, namely the threats from German raiders and of Allied defeat. The bigger picture into which the scare fits, namely
John Mueller. Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. I added this book to my bibliography just this week, tagged ‘get’; and then found a very reasonably-priced paperback while browsing in a bookshop. Who am I to argue with fate? There’s no doubt that there’s a
Ian Kershaw. The End: Germany 1944-45. London: Penguin Books, 2012. Decided to wait for the paperback edition when this first came out, a safe enough bet where Kershaw is concerned. Among other things, should be useful for placing Dresden in the wider context of what else was happening in Germany in these months. Marilyn Lake
Philipp von Hillgers. War Games: A History of War on Paper. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2012. Really only traces one strand of the history of wargaming, the abstract ‘German’ one which passes through 19th-century Kriegspiel and not the boardgame-style ‘American’ one or the ‘British’ miniatures one (not that these aren’t abstract, or purely American
Virginia Nicholson. Millions Like Us: Women’s Lives During the Second World War. London: Penguin, 2012. Disappointingly, not the novelisation of the film. I haven’t read her Singled Out — I think the ‘lost generation’ thing is a bit exaggerated — but the Daily Mail liked this one a lot, and that’s good enough for me.
In 1910, two Army officers, Second Lieutenant Bowle-Evans and Lieutenant Cammell independently put forward a new idea for an anti-aircraft weapon: the vortex ring gun. In principal, it involved the formation of a vortex in the air, by the firing of an explosive charge inside a conical ‘gun’ which, if it were pointed upwards, would
Don Charlwood’s No Moon Tonight has a reputation as one of the best Bomber Command memoirs. Charlwood was a Victorian who joined the RAAF in 1941, trained as a navigator in Canada under the Empire Air Training Scheme, and then flew in Halifaxes and Lancasters with 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds. Having survived his tour
