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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.

Like all new technologies, the airplane produced its fair share of both optimism and pessimism within (and across) those societies immediately influenced by its development. This was certainly the case in Russia where Imperial statesmen and private patrons optimistically hailed the airplane’s potential to strengthen the nation and promote culture at the same time others (especially within the artistic world) pessimistically focused on aviation’s destructive potential. Later, in the 1920s, Bolshevik Party officials made use of both visions of aviation to advance their political goals.

A more interesting issue is the one that Brett raises in a follow up comment on Revise & Dissent. Again in reference to Corn’s Winged Gospel he writes:

“I’d also like to know of any other countries which have gone through this almost religious enthusiasm for technology (atomic energy might be another, briefer example). Tremendous optimism, sure — think of Victorian Britain, all those steamships, railways, canals, telegraph cables, heroic engineers — but the religious flavouring does seem to be an American thing (to my untutored eye, anyway).”

I’ve argued that Russia was one such country in which religion played a vital role in shaping aviation culture, though it did so in a manner unlike that in the United States. However, my take on The Winged Gospel is different from Brett’s. As I understood the book, Corn did not argue (as Brett seems to imply) that America’s optimistic response to the airplane resulted from a “religious enthusiasm for technology” but, rather, that America’s enthusiastic response to aviation technology was largely a product of its underlying religious optimism.

This is an important distinction, as it does more than simply describe the fact of America’s enthusiasm for aviation. It offers an explanation for that enthusiasm by identifying as its source a particular vision of the future rooted in the unique religious traditions and customs of the American past. Given the near universal symbolic presence of flight with religious and spiritual traditions the world over, the intersection of faith and flight strikes me as a topic deserving much more attention.

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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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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.