Flight Culture and the Human Experience

Adapted from the 55th Annual Walter Prescott Webb Lecture Series held in 2021, Flight Culture and the Human Experience sheds new light on the myriad ways aviation has transformed ideas, cultures, and societies across time and around the globe. In bringing together seven established and emerging scholars to explore little known chapters in the history of aviation, this collection transports readers back to “a time when flight was new, while opening analytical paths for interpreting the future.”

Following an introduction, selections include:

• The Utopian Machine: Lighter-than-Air Flight and Romantic Socialism in Nineteenth Century France
• The British Mechanic at War and Aircraft Innovation
• Gender, Race, and Heroic Aviation in Interwar Argentina
• Civil Air Transport and the Colonial Context in the Interwar Period
• DÉtroyattaboy: Michel DÉtroyat and the 1936 National Air Race
• Chasing the Future: Why US Airports Seem Always Under Construction
• Selling the Fighter Pilot’s Dream Machines: The F-15 and F-16 in the Public Eye

Students, scholars, and other readers interested in modern aviation and its historical context will appreciate Flight Culture and the Human Experience.