Cultures and Caricatures of British Imperial Aviation: Passengers, Pilots, Publicity Hardcover - 2012

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Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation assembles an unprecedented mass of scattered evidence to examine the social exclusivity of people who used private and commercial aircraft to circulate though the empire in the 1930s. While airline publicity stressed flying patriotically and in style, flying was not always slick, romantic or modern. It did not end danger or delay, nor was it necessarily progressive. Imperial flying was mobility laced with imperious assumptions and prejudices. It reinforced social rank and continued to depend on the subservience and muscle of colonised people for regular and emergency travel assistance. Complementary biographical material, illustration and narrative illuminate the atmosphere, meaning and significance of imperial civil flying. Imperial cultures and caricatures were tenacious in the face of new technology, and Pirie shows that imperial attitudes and values framed the experiences and interactions of the (mostly) male British metropolitan and expatriate elites who flew, whether for adventure, prizes or leisure, or for colonial administration, business or research. The book also reveals the imperial sensations, sights and sensibilities experienced by those in less-privileged roles that served aviation. Drawing upon contemporary airline publicity and flying travelogues, he highlights the reproduction and (dubious) 'elevation' of imperialism in new spaces, which survives today as iconography in nostalgic re-enactments and sanitised commemoration of late British empire. Engagingly written by an established expert in the field, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of imperial, cultural and transport history.

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