Sebastian Ritchie. Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft Production, 1935-41. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1997. Just what it says in the title, really. Not, I think, from the declinist school of British historiography.
David Oliver. Hendon Aerodrome: A History. Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1994. Hendon was probably THE most important site for the cultivation of airmindedness in Britain up to the Second World War — first as the home base of pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White and friends, then from the 1920s as the location of the annual RAF Pageant, always
I’ve been reading George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (London: Penguin, 1989), which was originally published in 1937. Not because it has anything to do with my thesis, but just to broaden my horizons, and because, well, it’s Orwell, ya know? I certainly didn’t expect to read about the possible effects of bombing in
Andrew Boyle. Trenchard. London: Collins, 1962. Finally got around to buying a copy of the standard biography of a crucial figure in the early RAF. L. E. O. Charlton. Charlton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. Charlton’s autobiography, originally published in 1931 — so after his almost-resignation from the RAF over bombing in Iraq, but before he became
Lee Kennett. A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Looks like a very good short introduction to the subject. Balanced international coverage and the cultural side of things is not neglected.
Robert Graves. Goodbye to All That. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960 [1929]. Another of the classic war books, that I should already have read. David Powell. The Edwardian Crisis: Britain, 1901-1914. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 1996. New books about Edwardian Britain are pretty thin on the ground (over here, anyway) so I got excited when I
David Edgerton wrote in to let me know that he has made his 1991 book England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation available online as a resource for students and scholars (though it may go back into print at some stage). It can be found through his publications page, or
Had some good luck browsing in secondhand bookshops this week … Lee Brimmicombe-Wood. The Burning Blue: The Battle of Britain, 1940. Hanford: GMT Games, 2006. NOT a book, a wargame simulating the “plotting table” war, if you like. Product page. Well-researched, as the support page shows. DOES have Boulton-Paul Defiants, does NOT have Gladiators. Donald
Andrew P. Hyde. The First Blitz: The German Air Campaign against Britain 1917-1918 . Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 2002. A bit disappointing, looks like your standard pot-boiler account (and no references to speak of). Still, it was dirt cheap. Joseph Morris. The German Air Raids on Britain, 1914-1918. Darlington: Naval & Military Press, 1993 [1925]. Unlike
It’s been way too hot this week to blog, whatever energy I could muster I put towards that thesis thing. Instead, there’s this: David Edgerton. Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Expands upon the suggestion put forward in England and the Aeroplane that the fabled British welfare state is more aptly described
