A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918 (Hardcover)

~ Professor Robert Wohl (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wohl, a history professor at UCLA, has written the first cultural history of early aviation, bringing into sharp focus its impact on Western culture during the decade 1908-18. Illustrated with 300 rare photos, paintings, drawings and posters, including more than 100 in color, this large-format book reveals the powerful effect of aviation imagery on the popular imagination, the mythologizing of the "flying aces" of the Great War and the far-reaching implications for the new century's artistic and moral sensibility. Examples show how the invention of the flying machine inspired a generation of artists and writers including H.G. Wells, Franz Kafka, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Edmond Rostand, Kazimir Malevich, Robert Delaunay and many others. Wohl (The Generation of 1914) emphasizes the centrality of France in pre-1918 aviation; the first aviation competition, flight training school and major manufacturing plant for planes were located there. Exhilarating to read and pleasing to the eye.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

This elegantly written, copiously illustrated book presents the first cultural history of the pioneering phase of aviation. Robert Wohl`s fascinating story describes Wilbur Wright and other colorful early aeronauts, aces such as Baron von Richthofen, and the enthusiastic responses to the implications of aviation by such writers and artists as H. G. Wells, Franz Kafka, Kazimir Malevich, Robert Delaunay, Gabriele D`Annunzio, and Emile Driant.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (November 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300057784
• ISBN-13: 978-0300057782
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,093,697 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book--and misunderstood by Wantagh reviewer., May 13, 2004

By	christopher wren "christopher_wren" (Denver, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918 (Paperback)

I'd give this book 4 1/2 stars--higher than the Wantagh reviewer, who just factually (but grossly) misunderstands what the book intends to do. The book is not a history of aviation and whose patents and business ventures succeeded or failed. Rather, Wohl offers a beautifully illustrated, provocative analysis of how the advent and early development of flight worked upon the visual arts, literature, concepts of distance and xenophobic notions of national security. This focus comes out clear in the very title, which notes a relation between "Aviation and the Western Imagination." Wohl has found a great topic and his exploration of it presents us with a rich discussion of the links between culture and technology, between machine and imagination. So Wohl is not to be scolded for misinterpreting or omitting this or that avionics pioneer, for he is laying out how we as culture (not as meticulous researchers) assimilated this incredible new contraption, the airplane. Wohl poses no misinterpretations or bad emphases; his subject is not who did more for the science or its commercial applications, but who and what ended up on canvases, in music, and in bookstalls.

His chapters on art--the suprematist Malevich, the colorful effusions of Robert Delauney--demonstrate how flight literally altered methods of depicting space and motion, not just how airplanes entered artworks. He offers similar insights concerning literature, both high and popular, and throughout illustrates his suggestions with abundant art reproductions, photos, and extended primary source quotations. The book is probably the only think-piece I own that could be mistaken for a diverting coffee-table book. I mean that as a compliment, for the volume is both attractive and searching, and always engaging.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Almost a complete work, August 19, 2003

By	JFS Films (Wantagh, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918 (Paperback)

Wohl's "A Passion for Wings" is a comprehensive look at early aviation history and those who made it happen. His tales from France and Germany leading up to, and during, the Great War are fine. Unfortunately, in treating the American aviation community, Mr. Wohl dwells too much on the Wright brothers at the expense of Glenn H. Curtiss and Alexander Graham Bell who, together, came up with a 'solution' to the 'flying problem' completely independent of Wilbur and Orville. Mr. Bell suggested, and Mr. Curtiss first utilized, ailerons instead of the Wrights' inherently unstable and dangerous 'wing-warping' technique.

During the period of 1908 though the start of WWI, the greatest blight on the nacent aviation industry was the Wrights' rabid patent infringement attack on Curtiss and Bell. By avoiding discussion of this omnipresent story of the time, Wohl completely misses one of the key issues of the day. His mistreatment of Curtiss is glaring given the fact that the U.S. Army purchased thousands of Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" aircraft to train their pilots, while the Wrights were completely out of the airplane manufacturing business by 1912!