Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge Centennial of Flight) [Hardcover]

Scott W. Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0521859573 | ISBN-13: 978-0521859578 | Edition: First Edition

Focusing on one of the last untold chapters in the history of human flight, Dictatorship of the Air is the first book to explain the true story behind twentieth-century Russia's quest for aviation prominence. Based on nearly a decade of scholarly research, but written with general readers in mind, this is the only account to answer the question "What is 'Russian' about Russian aviation?" From the 1909 arrival of machine-powered flight in the "land of the tsars" to the USSR's victory over Hitler in 1945, Dictatorship of the Air describes why the airplane became the preeminent symbol of industrial progress and international power for generations of Russian statesmen and citizens, The book reveals how, behind a facade of daredevil pilots, record-setting flights, and gargantuan airplanes, Russia's long-standing legacies of industrial backwardness, cultural xenophobia, and state-directed modernization prolonged the nation's dependence on western technology and ultimately ensured the USSR's demise.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Scott Palmer has given us a remarkably original survey of Russia's aeronautical development between 1909 and 1989 that artfully combines political, technological, military, and above all cultural history into a rich mosaic that yields surprising insights into Russia's attempt to match and overtake its Western rivals."
Robert Wohl, University of California, Los Angeles

"Palmer's interesting ,well-illustrated book is a cultural history of aviation in Russia from late czarist days through the horrors of Stalin and WWII."
Choice

"Palmer's book is beautifully illustarted and provides the reader with much to think about regarding the place of the airplane in Russian and Soviet culture, society and politics. He does a fine job of fleshing out the continuities between the imperial and Soviet aviation industries." - Steven Maddox, University of Toronto

"Palmer is to be commended for integrating aviation into a wider cultural and political context. In contrast to more traditional aviation histories, Palmer's account teases out the connections between culture, politics, and the development of the technology. In the process, he illustrates that no history of modern Russia can be considered complete without an account of the history of Russian aviation." - Andrew Jenks, California State University, Long Beach

"[a] welcome book...Palmer provides an impressively detailed account of Russia's aviation history up to the end of World War II." - Drew Whitelegg, Emory University, The Journal of Transport History

"In a masterful book, Scott Palmer weaves the rhetoric and reality of Russian aviation from its tsarist start through its Communist rise and collapse. [He] has both provided an excellent study and opened another revealing window into a modernizing Russia." -Jonathan Coopersmith, Journal of Modern History

Book Description

Focusing on one of the last untold chapters in the history of human flight, Dictatorship of the Air is the first book to explain the true story behind twentieth-century Russia's quest for aviation prominence. Based on nearly a decade of scholarly research, but written with general readers in mind, this is the only account to answer the question "What is 'Russian' about Russian aviation?"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; First Edition edition (July 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521859573
• ISBN-13: 978-0521859578
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,428,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Scott W. Palmer is a graduate of the University of Kansas (B.A., 1989) and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (M.A., 1991; Ph.D., 1997). A historian of modern Russian culture and technology and a frequent traveler to the Russian Federation, he has conducted eight extended visits to Russian archives since 1994.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Wings, September 13, 2006

By 

Novice Aviator (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge Centennial of Flight) (Hardcover)

Palmer's book isn't another treatise about the design of Russain
aircraft or WWII military air campaigns. Instead readers will find a sophisticated treatment of original Russian sources, including newspapers, propaganda, poetry, and insitutional state directives that provides a myriad of perspectives on a single, but monumental, event in the history of mankind: human flight. The story of flight in Russia is more compelling and offers a greater understanding of Russian-Soviet life than similar histories of European and American aviation because it
coincided with another unprecendent and no less monumental event: the establishment of the Soviet Union.

Palmer argues that state officials in both Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union latched on to aviation as symbol and tool of their nation's progress and as proof of their standing in the modern world. Importantly, while the Russian autocracy failed to successfuly create a nation of fliers through voluntary associations (as was acheived in Western Europe and the United States), the Soviet Union also failed to do so, and rather spectacularly. As in many other endeavors, Soviet officials refused to face the difficulties inherent in their undertaking. They sought to create both a modern state and a modern aviation culture by fiat. Palmer rather dramatically explains how the
tragic story of the Soviets' failed attempt unfolded to the detriment of their citizens.

The book's numerous photographs, prints, and propaganda posters as well as Palmer's original translations of poetry, literature, and state archival material make this a book that stands out from its scholarly peers. Between these fascinating materials and Palmer's elegant prose one almost forgets that this is a work from an academic press.

Palmer's history is well researched and his depiction of avaition under the Imperial and Soviet regime is convincing. My only quibble is with the final chapter wherein Palmer makes a nod to the post WWII era of Russian history arguing that subsequent events demonstrate continuity with the patterns he has described for the first half of the 20 century. It is only in hindsight (and after 1991, save Robert Conquest) that one
could refer to the Soviet period of Russia's history as a complete failure. Given the obstacles and backwardness that so many historians, like Palmer, have described in the Imperial and the Soviet eras, it may be worth examining in more detail the relative success, however ugly the means, that the Soviets achieved in space flight and creating an air fleet second only to the United States during the height of the Cold War.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let's Have Motors !, March 7, 2008

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Michael L. Shakespeare (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge Centennial of Flight) (Hardcover)

Imperial Russia was visited by early aviators and was instantly fascinated by airplanes. Because Russia was the most backward of the great nations, its leaders, beginning with Peter the Great, sought to modernize the country to compete with other Western European nations. Could aviation give Russian leaders the right tool to spark modernization?

Airplanes were sent into rural areas for the first time to be inspected by villagers. Pilots answered questions, passed out literature and gave free flights to amazed peasants.

Dr. Scott W. Palmer explains how "rural believers were taken into the air by pilots in order to prove that there was no God, angels or other celestial spirits in the heavens. Anti-religious flights proved so successful that they quickly became standard practice."

Dr. Palmer describes aviation's powerful propaganda value. "The mastery of the airplane would make possible backward Russia's rapid transformation into the world's most advanced and powerful nation."

Russia's leaders were in a hurry to gain legitimacy from mastering aviation. Russia set about acquiring airplanes and manufacturing methods from other countries in her haste to build legitimacy in the world's eyes.

For years, the Russian aviation industry struggled to do more than make poor copies of airplanes from other nations.

Dr. Palmer relates, "They embellished actual accomplishments, exaggerating, and at times inventing, Russian achievements when, in fact, much less progress had been made."

Record setting flights were carried out to bring world attention to Russian aviation through goodwill. Soviet leaders deliberately insisted on developing the largest airplanes in the world, even if the had no practical value other than propaganda.

Soviet leaders praised their air crews as heroes that flew to better their homeland and "benefit their fellow countrymen" -- not for money and fame -- like Charles Lindbergh had.

With the country stuck in depression, the American aircraft industry eagerly sought sales anywhere it could. In an effort to find customers , the Soviets were invited to visit American factories. As delegation after delegation came and went, Soviet industrial spies quickly set about stealing manufacturing secrets and techniques.

In the Spanish Civil War, Russian military aircraft were proved to be most inferior, and she entered World War II poorly equipped. After the war, German designers and manufacturing technology were taken back to Russia for assimilation into the aviation industry.

By 1947, Russia was able to reverse-engineer a fair copy of the American B-29 Superfortress. Then, at last, Russia was able to surprise the west during the Korean War by developing the Mig jet fighter series by incorporating state-of-the-art British jet engine technology.

Readers interested in aviation or Russian history will find "Dictators of the Air" a fascinating study of one area of Russia's age-old struggle to surpass the west.

"Dictators of the Air" contains sixty illustrations. Dr. Palmer has included many aviation posters that incorporate specific symbols and images for propaganda purposes by the Soviets. The selection of primitive Russian aircraft photographs is very entertaining.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, December 29, 2006

By 

M. Heller (Topeka, KS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictatorship of the Air: Aviation Culture and the Fate of Modern Russia (Cambridge Centennial of Flight) (Hardcover)

Dictatorship of the Air is an innovative, thoroughly researched and very well-written book on a fascinating subject: the meaning and influence of aviation in Russian history. The author, Scott Palmer, uses an impressive number of archival materials and contemporary sources to build the case that the Russian approach to aeronautical modernization (combining state initiative, crash campaigns, and the acquisition of foreign technology) ultimately achieved far less than Imperial and Soviet leaders claimed. The book's treatment of technology transfer is particularly effective. Palmer does an terrific job explaining the internal economic and ideological factors that forced Russian officials to use espionage to keep up with competitors in Western Europe and the US. The book also contains (among other things) a fascinating discussion of the various "prestige" flights of the 1930s, insightful analysis of the religious foundations of Soviet-era aviation propaganda, and more than four dozen photographs and illustrations that readers will find nowhere else. This is certain to become the point of departure for future work on the history of Russian aviation. ***Highly recommended***