The Vivid Air (Flammer)

wacoavn · 10 June 2008, 11:39 AM

Some 28 years after it was originally published in hardback, someone has seen fit to re-run this long out-of-print book, "The Vivid Air," as a paperback.

I believe Flammer originally wrote this as a PhD thesis some years earlier, but it is the only scholarly book I know of ever written on the Lafayette Escadrille - full footnotes, appendices, etc.

Flammer was an Air Force veteran who was able to interview surviving members of the LE in the 1960s and often had access to their personal papers. Though I do have a issues with a few facts in this book, it was the best that could have been done before the invention of the Internet.

Flammer's end notes read as interesting as the book itself and his lists of references has been a true Rosetta Stone / road map for my own research.

Flammer was involved with the old Cross & Cockade issue (Volume 2, #1 Spring 1961) on the Lafayette Escadrille - this book is like an expanded, referenced version of that C&C issue.

Up to know copies of the original printing have been going for upwards of $60. Now you can get a paperback copy for much less:

Amazon.com: The Vivid Air: The Lafayette Escadrille: Philip M. Flammer: Books

TomVrille · 15 June 2008, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wacoavn

...someone has seen fit to re-run this long out-of-print book, "The Vivid Air," as a paperback.
...Amazon.com: The Vivid Air: The Lafayette Escadrille: Philip M. Flammer

Thanks for the alert! I frequently get recommendations from Amazon, but for some reason, this one has never shown up on their list.

wacoavn · 15 June 2008, 05:52 PM

I did not get an Amazon notice on this either. I suspect it is because this is not a new title and/or publishers have to pay to be part of Amazon notices and this university press does not pay. I just happened to do a search for "Lafayette Escadrille" - which I do occasionally, and it came up.

Thank you

dpolglaze · 16 June 2008, 11:18 AM

The book "The Vivid Air" is related to the author's 1963 Yale PhD thesis, entitled "Primus Inter Pares: A History of the Lafayette Escadrille." I don't know how much was added, or if the 1981 book is simply a reprint of the thesis. I'd guess additional research went into the 1981 book.

Dan

TomVrille · 19 July 2008, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wacoavn

Flammer was an Air Force veteran who was able to interview surviving members of the LE in the 1960s and often had access to their personal papers. ... Flammer's end notes read as interesting as the book itself and his lists of references has been a true Rosetta Stone / road map for my own research.

Having just finished reading the paperback edition of The Vivid Air, I'd like to add my recommendation that this book should be in the library of anyone with an interest in the story of the Lafayette Escadrille. I have a number of the references listed in Flammer's bibliography, but these were acquired over time, and were like loose photographs stuffed into the pages of an album without any effort to sort them into some sort of order. Flammer has rather skillfully woven these references into a chronological history that reads well!

There is a good deal of information that I have not seen in any other references. I assume that much of this was obtained from the personal interviews and correspondence between Flammer and a number of people who either flew with the Lafayette Escadrille, or had some other association with the escadrille and its' members.