Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Centennial of Flight

Focusing on one of the last untold chapters in the history of human flight, Dictatorship of the Air is the first book to explain the true story behind twentieth-century Russia's quest for aviation prominence. Based on nearly a decade of scholarly research, but written with general readers in mind, this is the only account to answer the question 'What is 'Russian' about Russian aviation?'

Missiles for the Fatherland was the first scholarly investigation of the culture underpinning missile development at Germany's secret missile base at Peenemunde. Michael Petersen's research reveals a complex interaction of professional ambition, internal cultural dynamics, military pressure, and political coercion, which coalesced daily life at the facility.

This book situates the birth of cosmic enthusiasm within the social and cultural upheavals of Russian and Soviet history, arguing that Sputnik was the outcome of both large-scale state imperatives to harness science and technology and populist phenomena that frequently owed little to the whims and needs of the state apparatus.

Edward Steichen (1879-1973) played a key role in the development of photography in the twentieth century. He is well known for his varied career as an artist, a celebrated photographer and a museum curator. However, Steichen is less known for his pivotal role in shaping America's first experiments in aerial photography as a tool for intelligence gathering in what may be called his 'lost years'. In Camera Aloft, Von Hardesty tells how Steichen volunteered in 1917 to serve in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). He rose rapidly in the ranks of the Air Service, emerging as Chief of Air Photography during the dramatic final offensives of the war. His photo sections were responsible for the rapid processing of aerial images gained through the daily and hazardous sorties over the front and in the enemy rear areas. What emerged in the eighteen months of his active service was a new template for modern aerial reconnaissance. The aerial camera, as with new weapons such as the machine gun, the tank and the airplane, profoundly transformed modern warfare.