Cultures and Caricatures of British Imperial Aviation Passengers, Pilots, Publicity

by Pirie, Gordon

• ISBN13: 9780719086823
• ISBN10: 0719086825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-01
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

The new activity of trans-continental civil flying in the 1930s is a useful vantage point for viewing the extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation examines the experiences of those (mostly men) who flew solo or with a companion (racing or for leisure), who were airline passengers (doing colonial administration, business or research), or who flew as civilian air and ground crews. For airborne elites, flying was a modern and often enviable way of managing, using and experiencing empire. On the ground, aviation was a device for asserting old empire: adventure and modernity were accompanied by supremacism. At the time, however, British civil imperial flying was presented romantically in books, magazines and exhibitions. Eighty years on, imperial flying is still remembered, reproduced and re-enacted in caricature.

Author Biography

Gordon Pirie is Deputy Director of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
List of illustrations	p. vii
General editor's introduction	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Private flying
Aerial adventure	p. 9
Seeking supremacy	p. 37
Imperial encounters	p. 60
Commercial flying
'PAX' Britannica	p. 83
Imperial journeys	p. 116
Personrifying Empire	p. 147
Virtual flying
Imperial plumage	p. 173
Imperial passages	p. 200
Re-flying Empire	p. 224
Conclusion	p. 238
Index	p. 243
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