[This review was commissioned by the Michigan War Studies Review back in 2016, but for some reason never got published. As MiWSR is now, sadly, defunct, I guess there’s no harm in putting it up here on Airminded.] James Hamilton-Paterson. Marked for Death: The First War in the Air. New York: Pegasus Books, 2016. Vanishingly […]
Object history, aircrew history, history for children.
Bombs, ‘Bomber’, and bombers (among other aircraft).
Group biography, airport architecture, and a campaign history. (If it wasn’t obvious by now, I’m selecting these books completely at random!)
A definite Australian flavour this time, from the Empire Air Training Scheme (as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan usually isn’t known as) to whatever happened after the Empire Air Training Scheme. Plus the book of a certain aviation history blog (remember blogs? Me neither).
2023 will mark 120 years since the first controlled heavier than air flight, and 240 years since the first more or less controlled lighter than air flight. Much more importantly, it’s also the year in which I am going to get my ever-growing stack of to-be-read aviation history books under control! I can’t promise that
After 1903, 1911, 1913 and 1928, it’s time to round off this miscellany of Australian mystery aircraft with 1939 and 1940 — separated by little over a year in time, but quite far apart in place and circumstance.
A few years back, my article ‘William Le Queux, the Zeppelin menace and the Invisible Hand’ was published in Critical Survey, with the following abstract: In contrast to William Le Queux’s pre-1914 novels about German spies and invasion, his wartime writing is much less well known. Analysis of a number of his works, predominantly non-fictional,
While you’re waiting for me to write Home Fires Burning, here are some other books (mostly) on the same topic, whether wholly or in substantial part. This is not meant to be in any way a comprehensive list; it’s merely what I have found to be most useful. I’ve included links to out-of-copyright/open access versions,
So I’m writing a book. Why? There are already many histories of the German air raids on Britain in the First World War: in my proposal, I listed eleven published since the 1980s alone, and even that is hardly exhaustive. Many of these are excellent — Ian Castle’s books, in particular, are required reading on
