Per Ardua: Achievements, issues, and opportunities in writing the history of the Royal Air Force

Abstract

The history of the Royal Air Force has been chronicled and analysed extensively in recent decades. Popular writers, niche experts, and academic scholars have all made contributions of one kind or another. There remains, however, an overall tendency to concentrate on the Second World War and a strong inclination to focus on operational matters. Academics thinking about studying the RAF might consider applying some of the approaches already adopted within the broader historical profession to studying the past of the world’s first independent air force.