The title of the series is a little misleading; this is not so much an identification guide as it is a well-illustrated overview of aircraft employed in the First World War. In a series of short chapters, Jack Herris and Bob Pearson talk about the types of planes employed on the various fronts during given periods, with box summaries of their performance details and anecdotal stories about their use.

The value of the book is threefold. The first is the numerous illustrations of the planes. These are the book’s most obvious attraction, and they provide colorful depictions of the planes themselves. The second is the book’s comprehensiveness: while the air war on the Western Front understandably receives the most coverage, there are chapters addressing as well the other fronts of the war and the use of aircraft in naval warfare and strategic bombing. Finally, there is the text itself. Though short, the narrative is nicely descriptive, while the aeronautical details are presented in a way that helps the reader understand the science behind the planes’ designs and why or why not they worked.

These factors make the book an excellent introduction to the planes that fought in the first air war. Though readers seeking a detailed examination of air warfare or dramatic tales of the pilots dueling in the skies will want to look elsewhere, anyone seeking to learn about the planes themselves and their employment throughout the conflict would be hard pressed to find a better place to begin.

With the slow site performance of the past few days, I forgot until now to post my latest New Books Network interview! It's with Doron Galili about his pre-history of television, which examines both its development and how visionaries conceptualized its role. Please enjoy with my compliments.

My latest podcast is up on the New Books Network website! In it, I interview Jürgen Melzer about his history of the transnational factors in the development of Japanese aviation (which I reviewed here). Enjoy!

When the United States went to war against Japan in 1941, American pilots were shocked by the superior quality of the planes flown by their opponents. Believing that the Japanese were inferior technological copyists, the greater capability of many Japanese aircraft models quickly disabused them of their assumptions and forced them to adopt different tactics until American airplane manufacturers could catch up. In this book Jürgen Melzer examines how the Japanese exploited Western technological innovations and manufacturing processes to develop an aircraft industry that by the 1930s was in terms of quality the equal of any in the world, one that aided Japan's goals of empire-building through warfare.

Melzer begins his book by summarizing Japan's initial exploration of flight through the development of lighter-than-air craft. Here the role of the military and the "balloon fever" which gripped the Japanese foreshadowed developments when Japan turned to heavier-than-air flight after 1908. With Europe at the forefront of airplane by that point Japan sent two army officers there for training and purchased craft for them to fly upon their return as qualified pilots. Though Japan investigated air travel in a number of Western countries, for the first decade of development they relied mainly upon French training and purchases in establishing their air arm. Shifting priorities and disappointment with the poor quality of postwar French surplus led the Japanese government to turn to the Germans and the French after the First World War, as they sought both to exploit air power for naval warfare and to develop an indigenous aircraft industry.

While this effort created the later impression of the Japanese as technological mimics, Melzer details how the Japanese strove to limit their dependency upon Western manufacturers and know-how. This comes through especially in his description of Japan's interwar relationship with German airplane designers. Shackled by the Versailles treaty, German manufacturers were eager to develop export markets, with Japan among the most promising prospects. The Japanese particularly valued German innovations in all-metal planes, and worked to master their construction at a time when canvas planes were still the norm. While Germans such as Ernst Heinkel believed they could maintain a dependent relationship, by the mid-1930s Japanese designers had already caught up with German innovators, exploiting their ideas in new and innovative ways. So advanced was Japan's aircraft industry by then that during the Second World War they were able to develop rocket and jet engine technology with only halfhearted assistance from the Germans, only for their successes to come too late to reverse their imminent defeat.

Melzer's book offers readers a wide-ranging examination of how the Japanese exploited training and technology transfers to build a formidable industrial sector. In doing so, he provides a case study of how nations go from dependency to autonomy, if not in the end complete independence form outside influence. It's an interesting and well-argued analysis, one that will be of considerable interest to readers of aviation history, the history of technology, or of the Second World War and Japan's efforts to win it.

My latest podcast is up on the New Books Network website! In it, I interview David Miller about his new biography of the 18th century scientist and inventor James Watt. Enjoy!