Peter Fritzsche is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
An important, thought-provoking study.
*Dissent*
Peter Fritzsche’s unusual and enthralling history is about the most
pervasive of [Germany’s] dreams, the national dream of an empire of
the air.
*The Guardian*
This book illuminates a significant event—the human acquisition of
powers of flight… The first chapter, on the zeppelin craze, is a
splendid evocation of the popular enthusiasm that flooded the
channels of official patriotism and disturbed the princes jostled
by the masses coming to witness the flyby or landing of
zeppelin…and this book becomes an informative and useful essay on
the German experience of aviation in the first three decades of the
twentieth century… Its strengths become obvious as it turns to the
phenomenon of human flight in its German incarnation, recognizing
the broad-spectrum appeal of flight and the peculiar relations
between fliers and the masses it engenders… This work is useful and
well worth reading. It promises a fuller, more detailed
continuation of the project of understanding the role flight plays
in making us different from our ancestors.
*Journal of Modern History*
An excellent book, beautifully written… There is really nothing
quite like it in the field… Its combination of solid scholarship,
appealing writing, and provocative thought makes it an important
contribution to our understanding of modern German military
history.
*Air Power History*
A fundamental breakthrough in the development of an understanding
of how technology fed a Faustian vision of modernism in which
nationalism and industrial society became ever more compatible and
ever more popular… A model in its insight into the correlation of
technology and the popular imagination in the twentieth
century.
*American Historical Review*
A fascinating tale that provides a refreshing perspective on the
history of early twentieth-century Germany, and Peter Fritzsche has
told it with flair, passion, and an array of evidence taken from a
wide range of little-known sources.
*German Politics and Society*
Peter Fritzsche presents a remarkable blend of technological,
social, and cultural history in his study of the popular German
reaction to early aviation… His findings have sizable implications
for all scholars of twentieth-century Germany.
*German Studies Review*
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