[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Mark Grimsley has an interesting post up at Blog Them Out of the Stone Age / Cliopatria asking people how they would fill out a history department of 15 full-time equivalent positions. I thought it would be fun to try this exercise for an Australian history department. Rather than trying […]
The front cover of Victor Lefebure’s Common Sense about Disarmament (London: Victor Gollancz, 1932); the artist’s name is Douglas L. Dick. (I also have a colour scan — the title is in red and the background is a cream tint — but it’s rather muddy and much less striking than the monochrome version above.) Note
Actually, as interwar visions of armageddon go, this is pretty mild. But it reminded me of the scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day where Sarah Connor has a nightmare about the coming nuclear war, with a nuclear warhead exploding over a playground filled with children: He was lying on a hill-side. Below him there was
Since I shamefully forgot to blog Battle of Britain Day last year, I made sure not to repeat this mistake this year. I’m marking the occasion by re-watching the classic 1969 film Battle of Britain, directed by Guy Hamilton. I must confess that I love this film. It’s not just because of the fantastic aerial
James S. Corum. The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918-1940. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. This will be a helpful reality check, as I spend so much time reading (usually greatly exaggerated) accounts of the capabilities and intentions of the German air force. Peter Fleming. Invasion 1940: An Account of the German Preparations
Some recent airship sightings: An airship is currently gracing Melbourne skies, thanks to Holden. I’ve seen it but not with a camera handy, so this picture by Dr Snafu will have to serve. It’s nice to see it floating around, but at only 54 metres in length, I’m forced to say: that’s not an airship.
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Five years ago yesterday, like so many others I watched in horror and confusion as the September 11 attacks unfolded on the other side of the planet and on my TV screen. It seemed so novel and so strange, to think of humble airliners being used as weapons. (I still
Note: the photograph turned out to be real after all. See here. In a comment to an earlier post, Alan pointed out that it has been claimed that the photo I used was a propaganda fake. As I have previously discussed the subject of fake combat photos, I was appropriately mortified at the thought of
As was widely announced in the picture-houses of the United Kingdom at the close of 1936: THERE IS NO DEFENCE AGAINST POISON GAS This is from a book by the German exile and novelist Heinz Liepmann, Death from the Skies: A Study of Gas and Microbial Warfare (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1937), 273. There’s
Airfix Spitfire Mk 21, a work in progress. Image source: Airfix gallery, user HawkerTempest5. It looks like Airfix, Britain’s oldest and most famous manufacter of plastic model aeroplanes (among other things), might be going under. It will probably not surprise readers of this site to learn that I had a collection of model aeroplanes as
