Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge Centennial of Flight)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.26 (546 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0521130433 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 328 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-04-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. His research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the United States Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the International Council for Research Exchange, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. A frequent traveler to the Russian Federation, he has conducted eight extended visits to Russian archives since 1994. Scott W. Palmer is a specialist on the history of modern
In contrast to more traditional aviation histories, Palmer's account teases out the connections between culture, politics, and the development of the technology. He has both provided an excellent study and opened another revealing window into a modernizing Russia." -Jonathan Coopersmith, Journal of Modern History . In the process, he illustrates that no history of modern Russia can be considered complete without an account of the history of Russian aviation." - Andrew Jenks, California State University, Long Beach"a welcome bookPalmer provides an impressively detailed account of Russia's aviation history up to the end of World War II." - Drew Whitelegg, Emory University, The Journal of Transport History"In a masterful book, Scott Palmer weaves the rhetoric and reality of Russian aviation from its tsarist start through its Communist rise and collapse
Based on nearly a decade of scholarly research, but written with general readers in mind, this is the only account to answer the question "What is 'Russian' about Russian aviation?" From the 1909 arrival of machine-powered flight in the "land of the tsars" to the USSR's victory over Hitler in 1945, Dictatorship of the Air describes why the airplane became the preeminent symbol of industrial progress and international power for generations of Russian statesmen and citizens, The book reveals how, behind a facade of daredevil pilots, record-setting flights, and gargantuan airplanes, Russia's long-standing legacies of industrial backwardness, cultural xenophobia, and state-directed modernization prolonged the nation's dependence on western technology and ultimately ensured the USSR's demise.. Focusing on one of the last untold chapters in the history of human flight, Dictatorship of the Air is the first book to explain the true story behind twent