Cultures and Caricatures of British Imperial Aviation: Passengers, Pilots, Publicity

(Hardback)

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Description

Looks at the new activity of transcontinental civil flying in the 1930s and its extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Gathers new evidence to distil the age, class, gender and occupational profiles of people who used private and commercial aircraft and looks at how flying in the period was and is romanticised and caricatured. -- .

Reviews

'In all, this is a fascinating view of a bygone era.'
Airways, 1 July 2013

'In this book, Gordon Pirie has managed to give readers the next-best thing by offering an entertaining and comprehensive study of the unique perspective on the twentieth-century British Empire offered by flying.'
John McAleer, H-Empire, H-Net Reviews. May 2014

'In this highly engaging and helpfully illustrated account of British Imperial aviation in the 1930s, Gordon Pirie builds on his near-unparalleled knowledge of inter-war British air services to expertly interweave an engrossing narrative history with a critical analysis of the academic and cultural significance of Britain's growing aerial aspirations and influence.'
Lucy Budd, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2014.

'... a worthy successor to Pirie's earlier Air Empire ... makes him the acknowledged expert on British imperial aviation .... It deserves a place on the bookshelves of the aviation historian as much as the scholar of Empire - indeed of anyone interested in the cultural upheavals of the 1930s'.
Peter Lyth, Journal of Transport History 34(2) (2013), pp. 218-220.

'This highly original and readable book is to be recommended to anyone interested in the history of air transport, and to scholars concerned with the culture and mentality of colonialism.'
Marc Dierikx, Journal of Transport Geography, 28 (2013), p. 214

'... another entertaining and enlightening study ...'
JE Hoare, Asian Affairs, 2013

Author Bio

Gordon Pirie is Deputy Director of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town