Aerial Nationalism: A History of Aviation in Thailand by Edward M. Young

Abstract

644 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE of the genre: a dense, dry writing style and a clumsy chapter struc­ ture. He includes antiaircraft missiles in the subtitle, but his treat­ ment of that complex topic is completely inadequate, as it is con­ fined to one section in the last chapter, with backtracking to cover the earlier history. It would have made more sense to mention these missiles only in passing. Finally—and he cannot really be blamed for this—Schabel missed sources for the mid-1930s origins of rocket aircraft in Army Ordnance/Peenemunde records in the Bundesarchiv /Militararchiv Freiburg. These show that, contrary to Heinkel’s memoirs, it was the Air Ministry that started an energetic program in 1935 to develop reaction-propulsion systems for high-speed flight, which explains why Ministry officials so quickly took up the turbojet idea once they found out about it in 1938. These caveats should not, however, be allowed to obscure the im­ portance of this book to all those interested in the “turbojet revolu­ tion” in Germany. MichaelJ. Neufeld Dr. Neufeld is a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. His history of Peenemunde and the V-2, The Rocket and the Reich, has now appeared in paperback with Harvard University Press. Aerial Nationalism: A History of Aviation in Thailand. By Edward M. Young. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. Pp. xxix+330; illustrations, maps, tables, appendixes, notes, bibli­ ography, index. $55.00. Aviation is acknowledged as one of the most important influences on 20th-century culture, and a great deal has been written about its genesis and development in North America and Europe. Historians of colonialism will also be aware that aviation played an important part in maintaining colonial power in the interwar period, partly through the development of colonial air forces and pardy through the development ofcommercial airways linking colonial possessions. Very little has been written, however, about the use of aviation by non-Western nations or its local effects. Edward Young’s AerialNationalism describes and analyzes in detail the development of aviation in Thailand from 1912 to the end of the Second World War and deals in more cursory fashion with the postwar period. Thailand is perhaps atypical of the majority of na­ tions in the non-Western world because it preserved its indepen­ dence from colonizing powers and so its use of aviation took place against a background ofnational needs rather than colonial develop­ ment. These circumstances have, however, given us an opportunity to see something which was probably unique for this period, a coun­ try which had not made a technical innovation and did not have the technical skills to contribute to the development of that technologi- technology and culture Book Reviews 645 cal form, but still used it in a developed form to suit its own needs as far as possible. Thailand managed to retain its independence between two colo­ nizing powers, France and Britain, but remained wary of their inten­ tions. When aviation developed, the Thai governments—at first a very supportive absolute monarch and later an even more supportive military government—became interested in aviation as a way of de­ veloping sufficient military strength to deter threats to Thailand’s sovereignty and as a way of developing a national spirit. A military Aeronautical Service was established which was entirely Thai, em­ ploying no foreign advisers and making a point of being as selfsufficient as possible. Thais travelled the world to learn of overseas developments and to select new designs, but there was a continuing emphasis until the late 1930s on construction in Thailand and on the development of a completely indigenous air force, which might study overseas developments but did not rely on overseas help and advice. As a result a highly effective air force developed within the restrictions of resources available to it. The Thai Air Force was al­ most entirely defensive, intended to deter colonial aggressors. It was successful when it finally fought a war of that nature, but when it was drawn into the Second World War those resources were insufficient. The development of commercial air services originally took place under the control of the military service...