TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 441 ban, and bourgeois elements of German nationalism. The Weimar glider movement, however, mixed technological enthusiasm with antiurban , back-to-the-land sentiments. Jeffrey Herf’s Reactionary Mod ernism, (Cambridge, 1984) has dealt more effectively with these con tradictions, although only through a much narrower and a more traditional set of sources. A Nation of Fliers is also rather Germano centric. Comparisons with other nations are few and far between and Fritzsche misses many opportunities to employ Joseph Corn’s The Winged Gospel (New York, 1983) for a more thorough look at GermanAmerican contrasts, although he does mention the book. These com plaints are, however, overshadowed by Fritzsche’s accomplishments. He has written a graceful and significant work and has given impetus to the social and cultural history of German technology. Michael J. Neufeld Dr. Neufeld is a curator in the Aeronautics Department of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. He is currently completing a book, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemiinde and the German Army Guided Missile Program. Farther and Faster: Aviation’s Adventuring Years, 1909—1939. By Terry Gwynn-Jones. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Pp. xviii + 333; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, in dex. $29.95. Terry Gwynn-Jones, for thirty-five years a professional pilot in the service of Britain, Canada, and Australia, has authored five books and numerous articles on the history of aviation, including The Air Racers (London, 1984). He has also had “the opportunity to work in-house for extended periods as a contract writer on the National Air and Space Museum Aviation History Project” (p. x), experience from which the present volume has emerged. Farther and Faster is an enjoyable book to read and provides insight into both technical and organizational developments of the period. It spins captivating tales of innumerable air races in the years between the world wars, and its photos of aircraft and aviators (mostly from the collections of NASM) will warm the hearts of buffs and perhaps of a few historians besides. Between race descriptions, the author sets forth excellent analyses of developments in aircraft design and of changing national priorities for aviation. For example, he shows how the Schneider Trophy seaplane races of the 1920s stimulated the aircraft industries in the major combatants of World War II, aiding in the design of airliners in the 1930s and especially of the warplanes that soon followed. He also demonstrates how closed-course racing led to the development of streamlined, all-metal monoplanes and high-power, low-weight engines, while long-distance challenges and races promoted public awareness of the airplane as a vehicle of 442 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE transport—both effects necessary to entice business investment in aviation. Here then are the book’s real strengths: nicely told and well-illustrated stories of races and race series, combined with analyses of changing public attitudes and aircraft industry developments. This gives the reader a sense of how, injust three decades, the Wright Flier and Blériot XI were transformed into the DC-3 and Spitfire. However, there is a question in my mind as to how much value this volume will have for historians of technology. The major problem is one of inadequate notes. The author reserves his notes almost exclusively for providing the source of direct quotes, and even then he does so without giving page numbers to the referenced works. In addition, his bibliography contains such unhelpful references as London Illustrated News and Scientific American (without benefit of article title, volume number, or page). One wonders whether the author and the press saw the work as solely addressed to the many buffs and museumgoers likely to purchase it and gave little thought to the needs of historians. Another concern I have with the author’s approach to history is its future-mindedness, rather like the air-mindedness of many of his subjects. Among the air-minded, aviation was “the greatest factor for progress that has ever existed in the history of civilization,” as an editorial in U.S. Air Services magazine proclaimed in 1923 (quoted p. 197). Similarly, the author frequently has events prophesy the future, when aviation...