Quote:
Originally Posted by Romani
Gentlemen, thank you all for the informative answers. I just got today Morrow's book. I understand now why is hard to tell what the book is about. The index is meaningless as it's just a chapter per year without a proper table of contents, I just read the preface, and I must say I am impressed by his prose and he sounds like a man after my own heart, as he makes the same points I outlined in my opening post. Could this be the book? that holy grail I have been questing after?
I am most impressed by the sources used, and interestingly, Kennet is thanked in the acknowledgements, turns out Kennet's book was first published in 1991, predating Morrow.
However, this does not supercede Kennett book, since Morrow book seems to be focused more on the industry and development of air forces, and I think Kennet will be better for describing the air war.
Interestingly Morrow wrote another two books about German aviation.
I will be doing some serious reading this month  |
Mr. Morrow, Sir, has taken the industrial end of things for his especial province and in doing so has, I think, added a great deal to our understanding of developments and events. I have his 'Building German Air Power, 1909 -1914" and consider it a small master-piece. Its focus is the way in which the German aviation industry was shaped in its foundation by the requirements of military aviation, as the military leadership conceived these to be in the pioneer period. This in turn had a great influence on the designs that appeared in the war-time period, in questions ranging from engine availability to what firms were able to engage in quality mass-production. The air war was first and foremost a contest of engineers and the machines they designed and produced, and so questions of industrial development must have a major effect on the course and outcome. When Mr. Morrow started his studies and writings, it was very much the fashion to treat the air war as a question of personalities, and personal daring-do, and he has almost single-handedly altered this, and very properly so on my view.