Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare: The Story of the American Aerospace Industry [Paperback]

Wayne Biddle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 2002

A 1991 New York Times Notable Book of the Year

This panoramic history of the rise of the American aerospace industry traces the careers of the men whose names became synonymous with today's military-industrial complex: Glenn Martin of Martin Marietta, Donald Douglas of McDonnell Douglas, Jack Northrop of Northrop, and Allan and Malcolm Loughead of Lockheed. Weaving together institutional history and individual biography, Wayne Biddle depicts the years of uncertainty after World War I, the bonanza of World War II, and the cutthroat postwar market. Unlike the automobile industry, the aircraft industry could never be sustained by the middle-class consumer economy, and these legendary founders had to depend on the federal government to keep their companies aloft. Barons of the Sky tells a thrilling story of obsessed men who, chasing their dreams of flight and success, created the modern aerospace weapons industry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Timely history for Americans living in an era of $95 billion contracts for fighter planes." --Thomas P. Hughes, New York Times Book Review

A compelling narrative... Much more than just a simple biography of aviation pioneers, it is also an astute analysis of the origins of the problems that have plagued the defense industry during the last seventy-five years.

(USA Today )

Biddle, in this thoroughly researched and admirably written book... finds that the national symbiosis of aviation and government has roots both early and deep.

(Gregg Herken Washington Post )

Biddle pulls back the cover of the traditional myths about the founders of these firms being steely business geniuses and gifted aeronautical engineers. He paints a fascinating and stormy portrait of eccentric and often uneducated visionaries who happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right dreams.

(John J. Nance San Francisco Chronicle )

Timely history for Americans living in an era of $95 billion contracts for fighter planes.

(Thomas P. Hughes New York Times Book Review )

Book Description

A 1991 New York Times Notable Book of the Year

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (January 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801868289
• ISBN-13: 978-0801868283
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,158,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wayne Biddle was born in Baltimore and educated at Cornell University, where he was an undergraduate in the school of electrical engineering and a graduate student in the English department's master of fine arts program. He has been a contributing editor at Harper's magazine, a reporter for The New York Times (where he won a Pulitzer prize for writing about the "Star Wars" anti-missile system), and a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Technical University in Berlin. He has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the American Medical Writers Association, the National Press Club, and the Newspaper Guild of New York. He lives on a farm in rural Maryland.

An interview with the author on Canadian Broadcasting radio about his book, Dark Side of the Moon, may be accessed at:
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2009/12/19/holiday-book-show-polar-obsession-poseidons-steed-dark-side-of-the-moon/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good story telling but biased, July 30, 2005

By 

Arduus (Lake Woebegon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare: The Story of the American Aerospace Industry (Paperback)

The author does a good job telling the story of the rise of the aeronautics industry. However, his narrative is marred by gratuitous and unsupported swipes at Reagan-era programs like the B-2, which he characterizes -- along with Northrop's YB-49 flying wings -- as one of the "technological grotesqueries" of the 20th century.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great new edition, January 31, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare: The Story of the American Aerospace Industry (Paperback)

This comprehensive, non-heroworshipping history of the American aviation/weapons business unfortunately slipped out of print for a few years, but is now available again from Johns Hopkins with a new preface. It is still unparalleled for telling the story of a pivotal industry without being stupified either by government secrecy or corporate obfuscation. A must-read for anyone interested in "defense" issues.