630 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE one that will be valuable reading for future scholars theorizing about the complex process of invention. Joseph J. Corn Dr. Corn teaches the history of technology at Stanford University and is the author of The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation (1983). Knights of the Air: The Life and Times of the Extraordinary Pioneers Who First Built British Aeroplanes. By Peter King. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. Pp. 544; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95. Knights of the Air is a history of Britain’s pioneer aircraft builders. Peter King has exploited a large number of published and unpub lished sources to present an account of the development of the men who began the British aircraft industry. He begins with Alliott Verdon Roe and other enthusiasts who experimented with the most curious and primitive machines and carries their stories forward to the age of jet aircraft. He deals with the personal, political, and business careers of each of his pioneers and sets out their technical achievements as well. All this is done in clear and attractive prose. Technical develop ments are explained with great skill and insight. Unfortunately, the book is marred by serious flaws. There is a full panoply of footnotes but the author does not understand the function of these notes. For example, he quotes some remarks made by Winston Churchill in 1917 about aircraft engines (p. 177) but there is no footnote to suggest to other scholars the source of the quotation. Lapses of this order are repeated throughout. At other points footnotes, or more precisely endnotes, are included but their techni cal purpose is unclear. They are, in too many cases, a kind of excess baggage designed to make the book look like a work of serious scholarship. King also repeats a serious mistake about the Wright brothers. In 1974 Percy Walker, a great British authority, published the second volume of his classic work, Early Aviation at Famborough. This was an original and brilliant contribution to the history of aeronautics, a monumental study. Unfortunately, Walker made a terrible error about the Wright brothers in his account. He stated that Wilbur Wright was paranoid because he refused to deal with the British authorities after they failed to purchase his invention in 1905 when it was first offered to them. Wright, Walker argued, was obsessed by his desire to keep the details of the Wright airplane secret and, as a result of this attitude, a sale to the British government was not achieved. However, in my No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers, 1902—1909 (1984), Walker’s argument was demolished. That book exploited scores of previously unpublished documents from the TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 631 Wright brothers’ collection of papers, preserved in the Library of Congress, which revealed that Wilbur and Orville had made every effort to sell their invention to the British. In these negotiations, Wilbur Wright demonstrated none of the “incipient paranoia” and “neurotic imbalance” that Walker imagined he could discern in his attempts to deal with the British authorities. This new analysis has been accepted as valid by British and American scholars. Nevertheless, King writes, “The latest research into Farnborough’s records makes a convincing case that the British wanted to reach a reasonable arrange ment but that Wilbur, the dominant brother, was difficult if not paranoic” (p. 23). This simply will not do in a book published in 1989. Alfred Gollin Dr. Gollin, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is preparing a series of books dealing with the air defense of Great Britain. His latest book, The Impact ofAir Power on the British People and Their Government, was published by Stanford University Press in 1989. Where Eagles Land: Planning and Development of U.S. Army Airfields, 1910—1941. By Jerold E. Brown. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990. Pp. xi + 220; illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibliog raphy, index. $39.95. Where Eagles Land examines the selection and development of ground facilities during the formative years of American military aviation. As Jerold Brown notes, air bases are not as glamorous as planes and pilots, so the installations used by...
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Feb 20, 2022
Alexander A Vadilyev 
Open Access