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Clipping the Clouds How Air Travel Changed the World
Marc Dierikx
ISBN: 0-275-98910-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98910-1
216 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 6/30/2008
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £34.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • The author correctly shows how the entwining of technology and public acceptance of the development of range and economy in airlines, together with the lowering of fairs by the introduction of coach/economy class in the late 1950s, followed by the development of intercontinental jets, led to a tremenduos jump in passengers carried. There is no comparable work, for boths its narration and bibliography. Highly recommended. All leves/libraries.
    —Choice     12/1/2008
Description: Mixing in elements of pop culture, Dierikx provides a chronological history of the evolution of air travel. He covers the significant challenges and developments in air transportation for a specific period, starting with how and why aviation came to play an important role in international politics and economic relations. He follows with an examination of how improvements in technology influenced existing concepts of distance, created new travel patterns, and what effect the growth in numbers of passenger and cargo had on air transportation. Finally, Dierikx looks at how airlines have become increasingly detached from national interests and state control, concluding with an overview of the current state of air travel, and a description of the role air transportation played in the creation of a global society.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is difficult to imagine our world without aircraft. Airplanes are everywhere, and rapid air transport has become one of the necessities of our time. Yet one of the peculiarities of powered flight is that it has stayed in the public focus for over a century. Clipping the Clouds looks at the history of aviation in a challenging new way, covering not just the technology, but the way aviation has interacted with society since its very beginnings.

Mixing in pop culture—each chapter opens and closes with an excerpt from a movie that depicts elements of air transport illustrating the chapter's theme—Dierikx provides a chronological history of the evolution of air travel since 1919. He covers the significant challenges and developments in air transportation for each of four chronological periods, starting with how and why aviation came to play an important role in international politics and economic relations. He follows with an examination of how improvements in technology influenced existing concepts of distance, created new travel patterns, and what effect the growth in numbers of passenger and cargo had on air transportation. Finally, Dierikx looks at how airlines have become increasingly detached from national interests and state control, concluding with an overview of the current state of air travel and a description of the role air transportation has played in the creation of a global society.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
    Chapter One: Heroics Flying as an Icon of the Modern Age, 1919-1945
    Chapter Two: Technology Air Transport around the World, 1945-1961
    Chapter Three USAGE: The Rise and Fall of the Jet Set, 1961-1977
    Chapter Four EFFECTS: Global Travel for All, 1977
    Bibliography
About the Author: MARC DIERIKX is Program Director of Development Cooperation Studies at the Institute of Netherlands History, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, The Hague, Netherlands. He has written numerous books and articles on air travel, airlines, and airports, including: Fokker: A Transatlantic Biography, and An Image of Freedom: The Netherlands and the United States, 1945 to the Present.
PDF Catalogs:
Greenwood History Spring 2008.pdf
Academic Library Fall 2008.pdf
Praeger Public Library Spring 2008.pdf
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