The War in the Air

by H. G. Wells

Overview

At the beginning of the twentieth century the invention of the airplane revolutionizes warfare and precipitates a devastating world war. Nations race to build armadas of airships; cities across the globe are bombed; flying navies clash above the Alps and India. The United States is invaded from the east and the west. German and American airships dual over the Atlantic, and New York is bombarded by German flying machines. Confederation of Eastern Asia airships soar above the Rockies, soon engaging in deadly dogfights with the German air fleet above Niagara Falls.

In The War in the Air, the astonishingly prophetic vision of H. G. Wells reveals how one invention can change the world. Before the World Wars, Wells predicted that airplanes would be used for bombing, that urban areas would become especially vulnerable to aerial attacks, that dogfights and stealth attacks by air fleets would become a normal part of warfare, and that distance and the expanse of oceans no longer would be guarantors of safety for America or other countries. Visionary in its time and chillingly relevant a century later, The War in the Air continues to remind us that humankind's greatest evil lies in devices of its own making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473333604
Publisher:	H. G. Wells Library
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Pages:	310
Sales rank:	701,457
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist, who published more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. Wells's prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction, but later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress. His controversial views on sexual equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.

Jay Winter is Professor of History at Yale University. He was previously Reader in History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He is a specialist on the First World War, and one of the founders of the Historial de la grande guerre at Peronne, Somme, an international museum of the Great War.

Patrick Parrinder has written on H.G. Wells, science fiction, James Joyce and the history of the English novel. Since 1986 he has been Professor of English at the University of Reading.

Andy Sawyer is a Librarian at the University of Sheffield with a particular interest in science fiction.

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1866

Date of Death:

August 13, 1946

Place of Birth:

Bromley, Kent, England

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Normal School of Science, London, England

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
I.	Of Progress and the Smallways Family	1
II.	How Bert Smallways Got into Difficulties	21
III.	The Balloon	44
IV.	The German Air Fleet	63
V.	The Battle of the North Atlantic	95
VI.	How War Came to New York	116
VII.	The Vaterland is Disabled	138
VIII.	A World at War	160
IX.	On Goat Island	182
X.	The World under the War	211
XI.	The Great Collapse	230
	The Epilogue	246

Editorial Reviews

“An extraordinary concoction—as if H. G. had shaken up Kipps and The War of the Worlds and poured out a new story that would appeal both to those who liked his social comedies and those who had been impressed by his early fantasies of terror.” —Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, H. G. Wells: A Biography

From the Publisher