Empire in the Air

2017-12-12 Social Science

Author : Chandra D. Bhimull
Release : 2017-12-12
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 055/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Empire in the Air by : Chandra D. Bhimull

Download or read book Empire in the Air written by Chandra D. Bhimull. This book was released on 2017-12-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the role that race played in the inception of the airline industry Empire in the Air is at once a history of aviation, and an examination of how air travel changed lives along the transatlantic corridor of the African diaspora. Focusing on Britain and its Caribbean colonies, Chandra Bhimull reveals how the black West Indies shaped the development of British Airways. Bhimull offers a unique analysis of early airline travel, illuminating the links among empire, aviation and diaspora, and in doing so provides insights into how racially oppressed people experienced air travel. The emergence of artificial flight revolutionized the movement of people and power, and Bhimull makes the connection between airplanes and the other vessels that have helped make and maintain the African diaspora: the slave ships of the Middle Passage, the tracks of the Underground Railroad, and Marcus Garvey’s black-owned ocean liner. As a new technology, airline travel retained the racialist ideas and practices that were embedded in British imperialism, and these ideas shaped every aspect of how commercial aviation developed, from how airline routes were set, to who could travel easily and who could not. The author concludes with a look at airline travel today, suggesting that racism is still enmeshed in the banalities of contemporary flight.

Empire of the Air

2013-11-01 History

Author : Jenifer Van Vleck
Release : 2013-11-01
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 243/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Empire of the Air by : Jenifer Van Vleck

Download or read book Empire of the Air written by Jenifer Van Vleck. This book was released on 2013-11-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenifer Van Vleck's fascinating history reveals the central role commercial aviation played in the United States' ascent to global preeminence in the twentieth century. As U.S. military and economic influence grew, the federal government partnered with the aviation industry to deliver American power across the globe and to sell the idea of the "American Century" to the public at home and abroad. The airplane promised to extend the frontiers of the United States "to infinity," as Pan American World Airways president Juan Trippe said. As it accelerated the global circulation of U.S. capital, consumer goods, technologies, weapons, popular culture, and expertise, few places remained distant from Wall Street and Washington. Aviation promised to secure a new type of empire--an empire of the air instead of the land, which emphasized access to markets rather than the conquest of territory and made the entire world America's sphere of influence. By the late 1960s, however, foreign airlines and governments were challenging America's control of global airways, and the domestic aviation industry hit turbulent times. Just as the history of commercial aviation helps to explain the ascendance of American power, its subsequent challenges reflect the limits and contradictions of the American Century.

Empire of the Air

2021-09-15 Technology & Engineering

Author : Tom Lewis
Release : 2021-09-15
Genre : Technology & Engineering
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 337/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Empire of the Air by : Tom Lewis

Download or read book Empire of the Air written by Tom Lewis. This book was released on 2021-09-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empire of the Air tells the story of three American visionaries—Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff—whose imagination and dreams turned a hobbyist's toy into radio, launching the modern communications age. Tom Lewis weaves the story of these men and their achievements into a richly detailed and moving narrative that spans the first half of the twentieth century, a time when the American romance with science and technology was at its peak. Empire of the Air is a tale of pioneers on the frontier of a new technology, of American entrepreneurial spirit, and of the tragic collision between inventor and corporation.

Empire in the Air

2017-12-12 History

Author : Chandra D. Bhimull
Release : 2017-12-12
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 474/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Empire in the Air by : Chandra D. Bhimull

Download or read book Empire in the Air written by Chandra D. Bhimull. This book was released on 2017-12-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention, 2019 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, given by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology Honorable Mention, 2019 Sharon Stephens Prize, given by the American Ethnological Society Examines the role that race played in the inception of the airline industry Empire in the Air is at once a history of aviation, and an examination of how air travel changed lives along the transatlantic corridor of the African diaspora. Focusing on Britain and its Caribbean colonies, Chandra Bhimull reveals how the black West Indies shaped the development of British Airways. Bhimull offers a unique analysis of early airline travel, illuminating the links among empire, aviation and diaspora, and in doing so provides insights into how racially oppressed people experienced air travel. The emergence of artificial flight revolutionized the movement of people and power, and Bhimull makes the connection between airplanes and the other vessels that have helped make and maintain the African diaspora: the slave ships of the Middle Passage, the tracks of the Underground Railroad, and Marcus Garvey’s black-owned ocean liner. As a new technology, airline travel retained the racialist ideas and practices that were embedded in British imperialism, and these ideas shaped every aspect of how commercial aviation developed, from how airline routes were set, to who could travel easily and who could not. The author concludes with a look at airline travel today, suggesting that racism is still enmeshed in the banalities of contemporary flight.

How to Hide an Empire

2019-02-19 History

Author : Daniel Immerwahr
Release : 2019-02-19
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 122/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis How to Hide an Empire by : Daniel Immerwahr

Download or read book How to Hide an Empire written by Daniel Immerwahr. This book was released on 2019-02-19. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.

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