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Air Power

The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Iraq

Author Stephen Budiansky
Ebook
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
On sale Mar 29, 2005 | 528 Pages | 9781101118405
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No single human invention has transformed war more than the airplane—not even the atomic bomb. Even before the Wright Brothers’ first flight, predictions abounded of the devastating and terrible consequences this new invention would have as an engine of war. Soaring over the battlefield, the airplane became an unstoppable force that left no spot on earth safe from attack. Drawing on combat memoirs, letters, diaries, archival records, museum collections, and eyewitness accounts by the men who fought—and the men who developed the breakthrough inventions and concepts—acclaimed author Stephen Budiansky weaves a vivid and dramatic account of the airplane’s revolutionary transformation of modern warfare.

On the web: http://www.budiansky.com/

Author's note

Part 1: Kitty Hawk to Saint-Mihiel, 1900-1918

1. Visions 3
2. Bogeymen 32
3. Realities 55
4. Grand plans 90

Part 2: Versailles to Madrid, 1919-1939

5. Lessons learned and mislearned 125
6. The quest for precision 153
7. The fight for the fighter 184

Part 3: Warsaw to Nagasaki, 1939-1945

8 Finest hour 219
9 Air versus sea 255
10 The temporary triumph of tactical aviation 281
11 The allied bomber offensive 308

Part 4: Omaha to Baghdad, 1946-2003

12 Strategic air command 345
13 Hard knocks 376
14 Precision, at last 406

Notes 443
Bibliography 485
Index

© Michael Lionstar
STEPHEN BUDIANSKY is the author of seventeen books about military history, intelligence and espionage, science, the natural world, and other subjects. His most recent books are Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union and Mad Music: Charles Ives, the Nostalgic Rebel.

Budiansky's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times magazine and op-ed pages, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Economist, and many other publications. He is a member of the editorial board of Cryptologia, the scholarly journal of cryptology and intelligence history, and is on the American Heritage Dictionary’s Usage Panel. He lives on a small farm in Loudoun County, Virginia. View titles by Stephen Budiansky

About

No single human invention has transformed war more than the airplane—not even the atomic bomb. Even before the Wright Brothers’ first flight, predictions abounded of the devastating and terrible consequences this new invention would have as an engine of war. Soaring over the battlefield, the airplane became an unstoppable force that left no spot on earth safe from attack. Drawing on combat memoirs, letters, diaries, archival records, museum collections, and eyewitness accounts by the men who fought—and the men who developed the breakthrough inventions and concepts—acclaimed author Stephen Budiansky weaves a vivid and dramatic account of the airplane’s revolutionary transformation of modern warfare.

On the web: http://www.budiansky.com/

Table of Contents

Author's note

Part 1: Kitty Hawk to Saint-Mihiel, 1900-1918

1. Visions 3
2. Bogeymen 32
3. Realities 55
4. Grand plans 90

Part 2: Versailles to Madrid, 1919-1939

5. Lessons learned and mislearned 125
6. The quest for precision 153
7. The fight for the fighter 184

Part 3: Warsaw to Nagasaki, 1939-1945

8 Finest hour 219
9 Air versus sea 255
10 The temporary triumph of tactical aviation 281
11 The allied bomber offensive 308

Part 4: Omaha to Baghdad, 1946-2003

12 Strategic air command 345
13 Hard knocks 376
14 Precision, at last 406

Notes 443
Bibliography 485
Index

Author

© Michael Lionstar
STEPHEN BUDIANSKY is the author of seventeen books about military history, intelligence and espionage, science, the natural world, and other subjects. His most recent books are Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union and Mad Music: Charles Ives, the Nostalgic Rebel.

Budiansky's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times magazine and op-ed pages, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Economist, and many other publications. He is a member of the editorial board of Cryptologia, the scholarly journal of cryptology and intelligence history, and is on the American Heritage Dictionary’s Usage Panel. He lives on a small farm in Loudoun County, Virginia. View titles by Stephen Budiansky

Additional formats

  • Air Power
    Air Power
    The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Iraq
    Stephen Budiansky
    9780143034742
    $30.00 US
    Paperback
    Penguin Books
    Mar 29, 2005
  • Air Power
    Air Power
    The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Iraq
    Stephen Budiansky
    9780143034742
    $30.00 US
    Paperback
    Penguin Books
    Mar 29, 2005

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