Many thanks to Brett Holman at Airminded who recently (and unknowingly) alerted me to LibraryThing, an on-line service that makes cataloging one’s book collection a very simple and painless process.

Just set up a free account, start inputting authors or titles, and you’re on your way. The site draws upon the Library of Congress collection, national Amazon sites, and more than sixty world libraries, to help you identify the specific edition(s) that you own. Once books have been entered into your LibraryThing collection they can be “tagged” by subject area, sorted, and searched.

The site is also a great place to get or give suggestions on what to read next as it enables you to view the contents of other members’ collections and exchange ideas through dedicated groups set-up by other library thingers

You’re allowed to have up to 200 books in your free account. Join as a paid member and you can catalog an unlimited number of books for a small $10 annual fee (Even better is the $25 lifetime membership).

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In a recent entry cross-posted at HNN’s Revise and Dissent and his own blog Airminded, Brett Holman ruminates on the apparent differences that existed in the manner in which American and British audiences responded to the advent of the airplane age. Inspired by his reading of Joseph Corn’s The Winged Gospel, which noted that American aviation culture was characterized by an overriding faith in the benefits that would result from the coming air age, Holman contrasts the American “gospel of flight” with the far less optimistic views that he’s seen expressed in the writings of then contemporary British citizens.

I don’t doubt the accuracy of Brett’s assessment regarding British public opinion and I think he’s on the right track in attempting to assess the nature of the British experience by drawing comparisons and contrasts with other nations’ responses. Even so, while the optimism/pessimism dichotomy may be a good way of beginning discussion and suggesting further avenues of research, beyond that, I’m not certain that it helps us better understand the origins or characteristics of, say, American or British aviation culture.
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Although the academic field of Russian history does not lack for talented and inventive scholars, as a general rule, there aren’t too many professional historians who can produce a book that combines innovative research with an engaging and entertaining narrative.

One of the few exceptions to the rule is Catherine Merridale, Professor of Contemporary History at Queen Mary University of London.

I’ve just finished reading Merridale’s most recent book, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 which recounts the experiences and emotions of front line soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. As with her earlier (2000) study, Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia, Ivan’s War benefits from Merridale’s consummate skill as an oral historian and her enviable ability to produce gripping prose. It is the kind of book that you just can’t put down and that you really wish you had written yourself.

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“Inventories”
It is almost impossible for aviation historians and history buffs to find themselves at a loss for something to read. The number of books, magazines, journals, encyclopedias, and illustrated guides devoted to aircraft is impossibly immense. And each year hundreds more articles and books are added to the mountain of existing works. The overwhelming majority of these sources fall into the category of what is considered popular history. Sometimes richly illustrated, well-written, and insightful (and sometimes not), these secondary sources derive their information almost exclusively from other secondary sources. In other words, rather than uncovering new archival evidence, introducing new arguments, or advancing new concepts, they re-package information available elsewhere. Very often, these sources are “inventories,” works that provide “facts & figures” (plus some cool photos) to the exclusion of other considerations. (Ex: a book on the P-38 Lightning or “Fighter Planes of the Pacific”). While such sources definitely have their place, they tend to suffer from at least one serious limitation: lack of historical analysis.

Analytical Works
The number of analytical secondary sources written for popular audiences is much smaller. Generally speaking, these are books written by journalists or professional writers who, while they may have an interest in aviation, are also widely published on other subjects as well. What sets these sources apart from the “aircraft inventories” is that they begin to consider the airplane within a broader historical context, or they advance a novel argument/thesis about aviation. Recently, a number of very good popular analyses have appeared. Near the very top of the list is Stephen Budiansky’s excellent Airpower, a survey of military airpower doctrine from Kitty Hawk through the Second Gulf War. Others examples include Richard Overy’s short work on The Battle of Britain and Lee Kennett’s The First Air War, 1914-1918.

Scholarly works
The final group of secondary sources are those written by professional historians and published by academic presses. In contrast to analytical popular histories, these works undergo a rigorous process of “peer review” before they’re accepted for publication. The manuscripts are sent out to two other professional historians who are experts in the field. These reviewers then check facts, challenge arguments, and offer detailed written assessments for revising, expanding, or otherwise improving the manuscript. To encourage an honest and candid assessment of the manuscript, the peer review process is “blind”. This means that the identity of the reviewers is kept secret from the author. He (or she) receives the evaluations of the manuscript not knowing who wrote them.

[Note: It is not uncommon for a manuscript to undergo not one, but two rounds of review, as the author, reviewers, and editor(s) debate the contents of the reviews and the author's responses to them. The blind peer review process explains, in part, why it takes longer to publish an academic history than it does to publish a "popular" one. This additional layer of "quality control" can add anywhere from 4-8+ months to the publication process.]

Although the number of scholarly works about aviation is nowhere near as large as the number of “inventories” and popular histories, scholarship on aviation and flight has really “taken off” over the course of the last decade. Many of the newer works [including Dictatorship of the Air] are devoted to what I refer to as flight or aviation “culture” (and others call “airmindedness“). Inspired by Joseph Corn’s path-breaking 1982 study, The Winged Gospel (now available in a 2002 reprint) these histories have paid increasing attention to the cultural, social, and political influence that aviation and the airplane have had in shaping the twentieth century.

Particularly noteworthy in this regard has been the contribution of UCLA professor Robert Wohl who is currently at work on the final installment of his three-volume trilogy concerning “Aviation and the Western Imagination.” The first two volumes, A Passion for Wings (1996) and The Spectacle of Flight (2005) have set the standard for historians focusing on Western European and American aviation.

Other leading professional aviation historians include: John D. Anderson, Roger Bilstein, Tom Crouch, Richard Hallion, Peter Jakab, Michael Neufeld, Dom Pisano, and Robert van der Linden.

Last (but certainly not least!), Von Hardesty, writing widely on both the Imperial and Soviet eras, has proven to be Russian aviation’s most prolific historian. In addition to having published numerous articles and essays on military aviation, Reina Pennington is author of Wings, Women, and War, the definitive account of Soviet women aviators in the Second World War. Insightful analysis of the contemporary, post-Soviet scene can be found in the writings of Jake Kipp and Benjamin Lambeth.