England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation by David Edgerton

Abstract

834 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE pages to a history of balloons both as reconnaissance and attack vehicles. The modern use of attack balloons is a facet of balloon history even less well known than the role of balloons in reconnoitering the Soviet Union. The public is generally unaware that the United States developed a balloon “bomber” in World War I; that the Japanese deployed transpacific balloons to bomb the United States in World War II (project FUGO); that the British used balloons to drop incendiary bombs on occupied Europe during much of World War II (OUTWARD); and that the United States developed an attack balloon in the 1950s to deliver chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (FLYING CLOUD). Peebles describes these projects as well as those in which balloons were employed for reconnaissance and other tasks (e.g., bombing Venice in 1849, dropping propaganda leaflets in World War I, and monitoring Soviet atomic tests during the Cold War) as part of a history of the military uses of balloons from 1794 to 1958. He also briefly describes the political context in which advances in balloon technology occurred. The book thus forms a valuable addition to the literature on ballooning that, for the most part, deals with their nonmilitary applications. The book has a few shortcomings: Peebles has failed to provide an index, he relies too heavily on secondary sources, and his technical descriptions lack detail. These are relatively minor flaws, however, in a wide-ranging and well-written account of an underreported seg­ ment of technology. Charles A. Ziegler Dr. Ziegler, lecturer in cultural anthropology at Brandeis University, holds advanced degrees in anthropology and physics and has a special interest in the relationship between technology and other elements of culture. Recent publications include a study of scientific ballooning, “Technology and the Process of Scientific Discovery: The Case of Cosmic Rays,” in Technology and Culture, vol. 30 (1989). England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation. By David Edgerton. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. xx + 139; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. £35.00 (cloth); £14.99 (paper). The dawn of air power at the beginning of the 20th century had a powerful and unsettling effect on the British people, whose navy had previously protected them against foreign invasion. The phrase often attributed to Lord Northcliffe, “Britain is no longer an island,” suc­ cinctly described this new sense of insecurity. The book under review, by David Edgerton, does not pretend to compete with Alfred Collin’s balanced and exhaustive study under way on the British response to air power. Edgerton has written an essay, as opposed to a monograph, with “a high ratio of assertion to detailed evidence” (p. xviii). TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 835 Edgerton contends that the airplane has been central to under­ standing modern Britain. Previous attempts to describe this impor­ tant chapter of British history, however, have gotten it all wrong. The received version is that Britain ignored science and technology to its detriment. The lack of interest in aviation was an especially important case in point. Both world wars found British aviation unprepared. This history of neglect continued after World War II with the cancellation of important aviation projects, which served to intensify the decline of British industry, science, and technology. Edgerton’s version, presented in a no-holds-barred fashion, is strikingly different. He takes exception to the view that England has been “anti-scientific, anti-technological, anti-industrial, and anti­ militaristic” (p. xv). The English are portrayed as being overenthusiastic about the airplane, squandering national resources, both intel­ lectual and fiscal, on the war-related uses of aircraft. When World War I began, Britain was as ready to employ aircraft as any great power; during the 1920s, the British led the world in airplane production; in 1940, the British aircraft industry outproduced the Germans by 50 percent; and as late as the mid-1970s only the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, built more airplanes than Britain. This excessive commitment to the airplane, contrary to the popular notion, made Britain a warfare state, “a technological and militant nation” (p. 107). Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who was responsible...