William Fielding Research Articles

Sticky Stock Market Analysts

Technological progress in recent years has made new methods available for making forecasts in a variety of areas. We examine the success of ex-ante stock market forecasts of three major stock market indices, i.e., the German Stock Market Index (DAX), the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJI), and the Euro Stoxx 50 (SX5E). We test whether the forecasts prove true when they reach their effective dates and are therefore suitable for active investment strategies. We revive the thoughts of the American sociologist William Fielding Ogburn, who argues that forecasters consistently underestimate the variability of the future. In addition, we draw on some contemporary measures of forecast quality (prediction-realization diagram, test of unbiasedness, and Diebold–Mariano test). We reveal that (a) unusual events are underrepresented in the forecasts, (b) the dispersion of the forecasts lags behind that of the actual events, (c) the slope of the regression lines in the prediction-realization diagram is <1, (d) the forecasts are highly biased, and (e) the quality of the forecasts is not significantly better than that of naïve forecasts. The overall behavior of the forecasters can be described as “sticky” because their forecasts adhere too strongly to long-term trends in the indices and are thus characterized by conservatism.

Review: Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design, by Sonja Dümpelmann and Airport Urbanism: Infrastructure and Mobility in Asia, by Max Hirsh

Sonja Dumpelmann Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014, 304 pp., 91 b/w illus. $60 (cloth), ISBN 9780813935812 Max Hirsh Airport Urbanism: Infrastructure and Mobility in Asia Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016, 216 pp., 20 color and 76 b/w illus. $25 (paper), ISBN 9780816696109 For more than a decade, a burgeoning body of scholarship has focused on how the advent of powered flight in the early twentieth century inspired what could be called an “epistemological” shift arising from aerial perspectives and their effects on the ground. Unpacking the cultural and visual politics behind one of the most transformative technologies of the last century, these scholarly inquiries have raised a wide of range of questions concerning spectatorship, aesthetics, mobility, globalization, urbanization, and design. It is rather surprising that this research field has gained a collective momentum only fairly recently, even though aviation and modern art, architecture, and urbanism were contemporaneous developments in the twentieth century. From Kazimir Malevich to Robert Delaunay, modernist artists incorporated different metaphors of flight into their avant-gardist imaginations of the world of tomorrow. In the wake of Charles Lindbergh's maiden transatlantic flight in 1927, Le Corbusier embraced a theme of ascension and utilized the aviator's ability to see the world from the sky to articulate a morally charged program as the basis for redeveloping cities. Social and cultural histories of aviation, however, have long been undertaken. As early as 1946, William Fielding Ogburn, who served as the first president of the Society for the History of Technology, authored The Social Effects of Aviation .1 Later Joseph J. Corn's The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation, 1900–1950 (1983) and Robert Wohl's two-part cultural history of aviation, A Passion for Wings (1994) and The Spectacle of Flight (2005), among others, expanded the scope of aviation histories.2 What is fascinating about the current scholarship on “aerial epistemology” is how the notion of human flight prompts both philosophical and tactical inquiries that are, in turn, operationalized to reimagine and reshape the built environment. These studies reveal the ways in which aviation not only …

Radar detection of the brine extent at McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica, and its control by snow accumulation

AbstractWe derive the surface density and brine infiltration depth/extent at McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica, from combined analysis of radar profiles and radar statistical reconnaissance of the surface from 2011 to 2012 austral summer airborne observations. Most of the brine boundaries appear controlled, directly or indirectly, by the snow accumulation pattern. The infiltration is bounded westward by an ablation area and resides just above the pore close‐off depth over most of its extent. The eastern brine limit matches a light‐snow corridor, suggesting a reversed pressure gradient at depth that might sharply slow down the infiltration. Brine into ice is confirmed at the deepest locations north and east of Williams Field. The ice‐ocean interface is undetected west of the infiltrated zone, except in localized patches. We hypothesize this echo‐free zone to be due to high scattering below the surface, possibly from a network of accreted ice and/or ice platelets at the ice‐ocean interface.

Process Support and Marine Systems in a Spar Hull: Innovation Meets Regulation

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper OTC 26040, “Process Support and Marine Systems in the Hull: Innovation Meets Regulation,” by Peter Kitchen, Houston Offshore Engineering, and Scott Murphy, Williams Field Services, prepared for the 2015 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 4–7 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Historically, the marine systems on a spar are relatively simple. However, attracted to the operational value of having large volumes of storage, particularly for flow assurance of the subsea wells and flowlines during shutdown conditions, the subject-hull design criteria included the capabilities to store (inside the hull) 10,000 bbl of dead oil, 1,000 bbl each of diesel and methanol, and 2,400 bbl of subsea chemicals. The paper traces the development of the project’s process-support and marine systems. Introduction The Gulfstar 1 (Fig. 1) is a spar-based floating production system located in the Gulf of Mexico. The spar has full offshore-processing and measurement capabilities for delivering oil and gas to the export pipelines, which tie into the existing offshore infrastructure. The spar hull is 584 ft long and 85 ft in diameter with a 60-ft hull freeboard. The hull supports an 8,500-short-ton, three-level topside. The hull also supports five initial risers hung off at the riser porch and provisions for four additional steel catenary risers to be pulled in through pull tubes. The spar is held on station by a taut mooring system composed of nine chain/polyester/chain mooring lines arranged in three groups. The spar is fitted with a variable ballast system that uses compressed nitrogen to adjust the seawater level in the four open-bottom ballast tanks. The spar hull also supports process and utility equipment and storage for dead oil, methanol, and diesel in integral (structural) tanks and for flow-assurance chemicals in independent (free-standing) tanks inside the hull.

‘Altman the Saltman’ and Joyce’s Dublin: New Research on Irish-Jewish influences in Ulysses

This article examines the life and politics of Albert L. Altman (1854?–1903), a Jewish Dubliner, prominent salt merchant, and member of the Dublin Corporation Council during Joyce’s final years in the city from 1901–3. As the Usher’s Quay Ward representative, Altman became widely known through the local press as a left-leaning advanced nationalist who, along with MPs William Field and J.P. Nannetti, represented a labour-minded faction of the Irish Parliamentary Party during the era. The essay explores Altman’s political ties and actions, and offers several figures, affiliations, and common locales in Dublin as points of contact between the Altman and Joyce families. Within that period, it reviews key moments during Altman’s career when he and his brother became the targets of anti-Semitic slurs. In its second movement, the article turns to analyzing key passages in Ulysses that gain new implications surrounding how Bloom’s Irish-Jewishness operates when viewed through the lens of Altman’s politics. Specifically, the ‘Cyclops’, ‘Circe’, and ‘Eumaeus’ episodes are treated to new readings that further reveal Joyce’s sensitivity to Irish Jewry through his awareness of one of the City’s most newsworthy Jewish Dubliners. The piece opens new vistas on Joyce’s knowledge of Dubliner Jewry and Jewish political issues in Ireland as opposed to the more widely held assumption that the author became conscious of these only during his first residence in Trieste and on the Continent in general.

A method for assessing the physical recovery of Antarctic desert pavements following human-induced disturbances: A case study in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica

With increasing visitor numbers an understanding of the impacts of human activities in Antarctic terrestrial environments has become important. The objective of this study was to develop a means for assessing recovery of the ground surface desert pavement following physical disturbance. A set of 11 criteria were identified to assess desert pavement recovery. Assessed criteria were: embeddedness of surface clasts; impressions of removed clasts; degree of clast surface weathering; % overturned clasts; salt on underside of clasts; development of salt coatings; armouring per m2; colour contrast; evidence of subsidence/melt out; accumulation of salt on cut surfaces; and evidence of patterned ground development. Recovery criteria were assigned a severity/extent rating on a scale from zero to four, zero being highly disturbed, and four being undisturbed. A relative % recovery for each criteria was calculated for each site by comparison with a nearby undisturbed control area, and an overall Mean Recovery Index (MRI) was assigned to each pavement surface.To test the method, 54 sites in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica were investigated including areas disturbed by: bulldozer scraping for road-fill, contouring for infrastructure, geotechnical investigations, and experimental treading trial sites. Disturbances had occurred at timescales ranging from one week to 50 years prior to assessment. The extent of desert pavement recovery at the sites investigated in this study was higher than anticipated. Fifty of the 54 sites investigated were in an intermediate, or higher, stage of desert pavement recovery, 30 sites were in an advanced stage of recovery, and four sites were indistinguishable from adjacent control sites (MRI = 100%). It was found that active surfaces, such as the gravel beach deposits at the Greenpeace World Park Base site at Cape Evans, the aeolian sand deposits at Bull Pass, and the alluvial fan deposits of the Loop Moraine field campsite, recovered relatively quickly, whereas less active sites, such as the bulldozed tracks at Marble Point, and Williams Field to McMurdo Station pipeline site on Ross Island, showed only intermediate recovery 20–30 years after disturbance. The slabby grano-diorite surface material at the former Vanda Station site, meant that the impacts that had occurred were hard to detect following decommissioning of the station and site remediation. Desert pavements disturbed by randomly dispersed footprints, temporary field campsites at the Loop Moraine and VXE6 Pond in the Wright Valley, recovered to be undetectable (MRI = 100%) within five years, whereas track formation from repeated trampling, particularly the concentration of larger clasts along the margin of a confined track, persisted for over 15 years (MRI = 82%). The recovery assessment method developed in this study has environmental management applications and potential to advance our ability to predict the recovery of desert pavement following human impacts from activities in Antarctica.

Unknown Quantity: Regulating Radionuclides in Tap Water

Radioactivity surrounds us; each day we are exposed to a certain amount by virtue of being alive on planet Earth. Some of this exposure comes from radioactive substances (radionuclides) that occur naturally in a wide variety of geologic and soil formations. Occasionally these naturally occurring substances become more concentrated or accessible through human activities such as mining and nuclear energy production, resulting in greater potential for exposure than their original natural occurrence would suggest. Other radionuclides are artificially created. Residents in almost all parts of the United States live on lands that contain minor to substantial concentrations of radionuclides of one type or another.1 These substances often make their way into tap water, leading to exposures by ingestion, inhalation, or dermal pathways during showering or other contact with the water. Although radionuclides are widespread, there are large gaps in our knowledge about sources of these materials, their distribution, associated health risks, and mitigation measures. However, the information we do have suggests that current drinking water standards for radionuclides established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may not adequately protect health. The EPA is set to review these standards relatively soon, and the next two years are prime time for filling in numerous information gaps and doing other legwork to make sure the review is as well informed as possible.

Poverty and power: the Irish Poor Law in a north Antrim town, 1861–1921

Austere and forbidding, the workhouse occupied a prominent position in the towns of nineteenth-century Ireland. Reformer Laura Stephens, writing in theNew Ireland Reviewin 1900, said of the Irish workhouse that ‘the great gloomy pile of grey stone buildings, surrounded with high walls is unmistakable,’ while Anna Clarke quotes William Field as having observed ‘Foreigners remark … that our constitution seems to produce poverty and lunacy; because, either the immense ugly union or the big regular asylum is generally the leading architectural feature in county towns; instead of the fine church or cathedral, the handsomemaison de ville, and the pleasurable, instructive galleries to be found in other countries.’

On Sociological Writing*

It is widely thought, both inside and outside our profession, that sociologists do not express themselves very well. The critic Malcolm Cowley complained years ago that the wisdoms of sociology, such as they are, tend to be conveyed "in a language that has to be learned almost like Esperanto." And Edmund Wilson, who once toyed with the idea that the writing of every specialist in the university should be reviewed by professors of English, doubted that sociologists would ever be able to survive such a test. Exposing the defects of sociological writing is a literary sport of long standing.

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. WILLIAM FIELD, executive director; ROBIN FARWELL GAVIN, chief curator; PATRICIA PRICE, curator of education; http://www.spanishcolonial.org/

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. W<scp>ILLIAM</scp> F<scp>IELD</scp>, executive director; R<scp>OBIN</scp> F<scp>ARWELL</scp> G<scp>AVIN</scp>, chief curator; P<scp>ATRICIA</scp> P<scp>RICE</scp>, curator of education; http://www.spanishcolonial.org/

3. William Fielding Ogburn's Fostering of Sol Tax's Explorations of Small-Scale Mercantile Capitalism in Highland Guatemala

3. William Fielding Ogburn's Fostering of Sol Tax's Explorations of Small-Scale Mercantile Capitalism in Highland Guatemala

The Special Music Issue CD: Passed Down Things: Liner Notes and Track List

Note: Special Music Issue's CD is attached inside the back cover. If the blues, as B.B. King says, is passed-down thing, it is a most unusual kind of hand-me-down. For the blues tradition inspires musicians to preserve its legacy even while augmenting it. music, as King says as the tunes on this disc make clear, regenerates itself reinvents itself at the same time. Consider Lovey Williams. Mississippi bluesman a sharecropper, Williams learned his craft from his father from the radio. Here he takes John Lee Hooker's Chillun makes it his own. 1 A passed-down thing ..., B.B. King, 2:07 B.B. King at his home, 11 December 1974. All B.B. King tracks are courtesy of the William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-CH. 2 Boogie Chiliun, Lovey Wiliiarns, 2:14 Lovey Williams: guitar & vocals. Recorded in Morning Star, MS, by William R. Ferris, ca. 1968. Lovey Williams field recordings, William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-CH. infectious pulse of Williams's blues shook the juke joints in Mississippi's Delta, a similar energy, as King suggests, moved inside the region's sanctified churches. Certainly, Fannie Bell Chapman her family praying band testify to the belief in the Holy Spirit's healing power. 3 The sanctified preacher played guitar ..., B.B. King, 0:42 B.B. King, Calhoun Master's Lounge, 1974. 4 When All God's Children Get Together, Fannie Bell Chapman, 1:09 Fannie Bell Chapman: lead vocals. Recorded in Centreville, MS, by William R. Ferris Judy Peiser, Jan. 1974. Fannie Bell Chapman field recordings, William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection. 5 The same feeling ..., B.B. King, 0:14 B.B. King at his home, 11 December 1974. 6 Go Where Send Thee, Fannie Bell Chapman, 3:43 Fannie Bell Chapman: lead vocals. Recorded in Centreville, MS, by William R. Ferris Judy Peiser, July 1973. Fannie Bell Chapman field recordings, William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection. King insists that the worldly blues heal, comfort, cure. (Why wait for the sweet by by?) blues' healing power arrives in many forms. James Son Thomas sings a patchwork traveling nine in which the weary singer reassures himself that things will be better up the road. Lovey Williams remains unconvinced. ribald Williams seems to be having some car trouble: I got a little starter, baby, he growls in a classic line of blues double entendre, and your motor wouldn't go. Williams's amorous difficulties, however, pale in comparison to the off-target lover in Tommy Edwards's hilarious Tears Spoiled My a bluegrass melody that aims to pierce the fleshy body of southern folk songs devoted to spurned sweethearts. But in a reversal from James Thomas won't let you laugh long. By the last verse of his ominous 44 you're convinced that nothing will spoil this singer's aim. 7 Something like a tonic ..., B.B. King, 0:26 B.B. King, Calhoun Master's Lounge, 1974. 8 Beefsteak Blues, James Son Thomas, 4:01 James Son Thomas: guitar & vocals. Recorded in Leland, MS, by William R. Ferris, ca. 1968. James Son Thomas field recordings, William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection. 9 Baby, Let Me Ride in Your Automobile, Lovey Williams, 2:04 Lovey Williams: guitar & vocals. Recorded in Morning Star, MS, by William R. Ferris, ca. 1968. Lovey Williams field recordings, William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection. 10 My Tears Spoiled My Aim, Tommy Edwards, 2:42 Tommy Edwards: guitar & lead vocals. …

Real-Time Forecasting for the Antarctic: An Evaluation of the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS)*

Abstract In response to the need for improved weather prediction capabilities in support of the U.S. Antarctic Program’s field operations, the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) was implemented in October 2000. AMPS employs the Polar MM5, a version of the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model optimized for use over ice sheets. The modeling system consists of several domains ranging in horizontal resolution from 90 km covering a large part of the Southern Hemisphere to 3.3 km over the complex terrain surrounding McMurdo, the hub of U.S. operations. The performance of the 30-km AMPS domain versus observations from manned and automatic weather stations is statistically evaluated for a 2-yr period from September 2001 through August 2003. The simulated 12–36-h surface pressure and near-surface temperature at most sites have correlations of r &amp;gt; 0.95 and r &amp;gt; 0.75, respectively, and small biases. Surface wind speeds reflect the complex topography and generally have correlations between 0.5 and 0.6, and positive biases of 1–2 m s−1. In the free atmosphere, r &amp;gt; 0.95 (geopotential height), r &amp;gt; 0.9 (temperature), and r &amp;gt; 0.8 (wind speed) at most sites. Over the annual cycle, there is little interseasonal variation in skill. Over the length of the forecast, a gradual decrease in skill is observed from hours 0–72. One exception is the surface pressure, which improves slightly in the first few hours, due in part to the model adjusting from surface pressure biases that are caused by the initialization technique over the high, cold terrain. The impact of the higher-resolution model domains over the McMurdo region is also evaluated. It is shown that the 3.3-km domain is more sensitive to spatial and temporal changes in the winds than the 10-km domain, which represents an overall improvement in forecast skill, especially on the windward side of the island where the Williams Field and Pegasus runways are situated, and in the lee of Ross Island, an important area of mesoscale cyclogenesis (although the correlation coefficients in these regions are still relatively low).

Postexercise oxygen consumption and substrate use after resistance exercise in women.

This study investigated the acute effects of 45 min of resistance exercise (RE) on excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and substrate oxidation 120 min after exercise in moderately trained women. Ten RE trained women (age = 29 +/- 3 yr; ht = 168 +/- 8.3 cm; wt = 59 +/- 5.7 kg; VO2max = 38.3 +/- 4.7 mL.kg-1.min-1) underwent two trials: control sitting and RE. Subjects acted as their own controls in a random counterbalanced design. A 2-d nonexercise period was established between testing trials. Oxygen consumption (VO2) and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) were measured continuously by indirect calorimetry before, during, and after exercise and on a separate control day. RE consisted of 3 sets of 10 exercises at 10-repetition maximum with a 1-min rest period between each set. Fingertip samples of blood lactate concentration [BL] were collected immediately postexercise and every 30 min thereafter until [BL] returned to resting baseline values after exercise. The overall 2-h EPOC was 6.2-L (RE = 33.4 +/- 5.1 L vs control = 27.2 +/- 0.3 L), corresponding to an 18.6% elevation over the control period. RER was significantly (P < 0.01) below the control RER from minute 30 to minute 120 postexercise (RE = 0.75 +/- 0.01 vs control = 0.85 +/- 0.01). During the last 30 min of recovery, VO2 and [BL] had returned to control/baseline values and fat oxidation was significantly (P < 0.0001) higher (29.2 vs 16.3 kcal) after RE compared with the control trial. These data indicate that in young RE trained women, acute RE produces a modest increase in VO2 during a 2-h recovery period and an increase in fat oxidation.

Stalking the sociological imagination: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI surveillance of American sociology

Stalking the Sociological Imagination W.E.B. Du Bois: Sociologist beyond the Veil Ernest W. Burgess: Security Matter-C William Fielding Ogburn: Scientist, Statistician, Schizophrene Robert and Helen Lynd: From Middletown to Moronia E. Franklin Frazier: Enfant Terrible Pitirim A. Sorokin: Sociological Prophet in a Priestly Land No One above Suspicion: Talcott Parsons under Surveillance Testing a Concept: Herbert Blumer's Loyalty Samuel Stouffer: Patriot and Practitioner Our Man in Havana: C. Wright Mills Talks, Yankee Listens The Crimefighter and the Criminologist: The Case of Edwin H. Sutherland and J. Edgar Hoover Conclusion Bibliography Index

Regional dynamics: the basis of electoral support in Britain

Albion- This is an interesting, well -researched historical survey...it is also a useful additon to existing literature Contemporary Review - This is a fascinating study which examines the underlying and sometimes overlooked divisions within the modern British electorate Parliamentary Affairs- a sophisticated and balanced evaluation Political Studies- William Field has written an excellent and highly readable book...Regional Dynamics is a scholarly and valuable piece of research which deserves wide readership

William Field. Regional Dynamics: The Basis of Electoral Supportin Britain. London: Frank Cass; dist. by ISBS, Portland, Ore. 1997. Pp. xii, 210. $42.50. ISBN 0-7146-4782-9.

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Council house sales and local government: A case of conflicting goals

William Field looks at council house sales in London to show how local authorities can influence how the policies of national governments are implemented.

Quantum corrections to the Weizsäcker-Williams gluon distribution function at small x.

We compute the quantum corrections to the gluon distribution function in the background of a non--Abelian Weizs\"acker--Williams field. These corrections are valid to all orders in the effective coupling $\alpha_s \mu$, where $\mu^2$ denotes the average valence quark color charge squared per unit area. We find $\ln(1/x)$ logarithmic corrections to the classical gluon distribution function. The one loop corrections to the classical Weizs\"acker-Williams field do not contribute to these singular terms in the distribution function. Their effect is to cause the running of $\alpha_s$.

A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908–1918 by Robert Wohl

194 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE America. Osborne notes that significant scientific activity took place in the colonies, but he limits his discussion to Auguste Hardy’s botanical researches in Algiers. In my view, Osborne has focused too narrowly on institutional and political issues at the expense of technical, social, and cultural matters. Local voices are completely absent from the narrative. Osborne’s assertion that “the French were not interested in learning about farming from the North Africans” (p. 163) may be generally true. There are counterexamples, however, such as Jean-Jacques ClémentMullet ’s and Auguste Cherbonneau’s translations of Islamic treatises on agriculture, which were not motivated by purely historical inter­ ests. Yet the book is valuable as a keen account of one 19th-century scientific institution, its relation to politics, and its affiliation with colo­ nialism. François Charette Mr. Charette is a graduate student in history at the University of Montreal, where he completed an M.A. thesis dealing with 19th-century European historiography of Islamic and Hindu science, technology, and medicine. A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908—1918. By Robert Wohl. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. Pp. vii + 320; illustrations, notes, index. $35.00. Every so often, a book comes along that dramatically alters the way we understand aviation’s place in our culture. In 1946, William Fielding Ogburn’s sweeping sociological study, The Social Effects of Aviation, investigated the impact of the airplane on areas such as the family, cities, manufacturing, agriculture, government and public policy, and international politics. Thirty-seven years later, Joseph J. Corn’s The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation abandoned the standard approach to writing the history of aviation to focus on, in Corn’s words, “the emotional aspects of our historical response to machines like the airplane” (p. viii). In 1994, we have Robert Wohl’s skillful and articulate A Passionfor Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908—1918, the first of a projected three-part cultural history of aviation. In undertaking the project, Wohl observed that the history of aviation “lived in a wellfurnished but essentially walled-off compartment that most histori­ ans . . . had no need to visit” and was convinced that it had to be integrated into “the main narrative of the twentieth-century West” (pp. 1—2). More important, he was intrigued with “the compulsion that people felt to transform, through the play of their imagina­ tion, the most mechanical of events—the invention and development of the Hying machine—into a form of spiritual creation” (p. 2). The book’s analysis of the airplane’s encounter with the imagination in the formative period of its development is extensive. Among other TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 195 things, it deals with the literary precursors of military action in the skies; the reaction of poets and painters to the airplane; the fascina­ tion with aviation, death, and immortality; and aviation and the trans­ formation of modern culture. The decade covered was perhaps the most fertile in the history of aviation for artists, intellectuals, and the public. It was a time, as Wohl says, “long dreamt about, enshrined in fable and myth” that “excited people’s imagination and appeared to be the coming of a New Age” (p. 1). It was also a time, before the beginning of the Great War, when “attitudes toward aviation were almost always filtered through the lens of patriotic feelings. To see an aviator in the sky was to receive a powerful political message” (p. 259). To be superior in aero­ nautics “was to put to rest nagging doubts about those national virtues needed to survive in a Darwinian world where the weak were doomed to fall prey to the strong” (p. 259). It is the tension and affinity between wonderment and nationalistic fervor that Wohl balances so superbly and that make this book such a valuable contribution to the history of aviation. Attending an air meet in Brescia, Italy, in 1909, the young Franz Kafka describes the apparently miraculous ascent of aviator Henry Rougier. Rougier, Kafka wrote, “appeared so high in the air that one thought that soon his course would have to be...