I’ve been reading a curious tome by Robert William Cole, called The Struggle for Empire. It’s curious because the empire of the title is the British Empire, or rather the Anglo-Saxon Empire, and the struggle takes place in interstellar space. And because it was published in 1900! It has a good claim to being the […]
Some more navel-gazingpost-thesis analysis. Above is a plot of the number of primary sources (1908-1941) I cite by date of publication. (Published sources only, excluding newspaper articles — of which there are a lot — and government documents. Also, it’s not just airpower stuff, though it mostly is.) I actually have no idea if it’s
This is something I’ve been wondering about for ages. In The Impact of Air Power on the British People and their Government, Alfred Gollin notes, but does not explain, a recurring theme: the idea that after a damaging air raid, angry mobs would string up government ministers (or other servants of the public) from lamp-posts
Today, I was reading an account of the Cambridge Scientists’ Anti-War Group in Gary Werskey, The Visible College (London: Allen Lane, 1978). On p. 230 I came across the following passage: The Association of Scientific Workers strongly endorsed their work,48 as did J. B. S. Haldane. I turned to the endnotes to check the reference,
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] I recently rewatched one of my favourite science fiction films, The Day the Earth Stood Still — the 1951 original, of course, not the currently-screening remake (which I have yet to see, but tend to doubt that it will improve over the original in any area other than special effects).
I’ve had a few inbound links from forums in the last few days, including this one. It’s nice to be linked to, but in this case one of the participants, kyt, has a bit of a rant about my snobbishness: The blogger does seem to have a certain, for want of a better word, snobbishness.
One of the things I love about the official history of the RFC and RAF in the First World War is all the maps — multi-panel fold-out jobs showing where bombs fell in London during the Gotha raids, or the Allied front in Macedonia. That’s not to mention the accompanying slip-cases stuffed full of more
David Faber. Munich: The 1938 Appeasement Crisis. London: Simon & Schuster, 2008. A much-needed narrative history, though I’m sure it won’t quite satisfy me! Mostly political and diplomatic, and mostly from the British point of view. Also some of the street-level stuff — calls ARP Sunday gas mask Sunday. Matthew J. Flynn. First Strike: Preemptive
David Cortright. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. A history of pacifism, mainly concentrating on Britain and the United States in the 20th century, with an emphasis on the latter half.
One of the fun things about reading old books that nobody else has opened for decades is what you sometimes find inside them: annotations, bookmarks, letters, racist leaflets (OK, that one was not so fun). Above is a library call slip (i.e. the bit of paper you fill in to request that a book be
