Texas A&M University Press
Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire
Key Metrics
- David T Courtwright
- Texas A&M University Press
- Hardcover
- 9781585443840
- 9.56 X 6.44 X 1.12 inches
- 1.44 pounds
- Technology & Engineering > Aeronautics & Astronautics
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The airplane turned the sky into a new domain of human activity, a fast-developing frontier. The first to brave that frontier were adventurous young men. Then came the rich and the hurried. Then just about everybody else. Until now, no one has told the story of aviation as one of frontier expansion. David Courtwright does so in Sky as Frontier. He has written an ambitious history of American aviation ranging from the patent fight between the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss through the tragedy of 9/11 and the Iraq War. Along the way, Courtwright stops to consider dogfighting, barnstorming, the first air mail pilots, the development of airlines, air power during World War II, flight's impact on the environment, the troubled space frontier, and how the male-dominated aviation enterprise was domesticated and democratized.
Aviation's frontier stage lasted a scant three decades, then vanished as flying became a settled experience. Sky as Frontier recreates that pioneer world and shows how commercial and military imperatives destroyed it by routinizing flight. At bottom, it is the story of a fateful tradeoff. Rationalization killed the adventure in flying but made possible rapid aerial expansion. With it came commercial growth and glob8al military reach. In no other country did social life, business, and military operations become so intertwined with aerospace advances, or have such large consequences for national power and prestige.
Author Bio
I have taught medical, U.S., and world history at the University of North Florida, where I am presidential professor emeritus in the Department of History. I have authored books on drug use and drug policy, both in American and world history; the special problems of frontier environments, both on the land and in the air; and, most recently, about the culture war that has roiled American politics since the 1960s. I am currently working on a book about pleasure and capitalism in the modern world.
David T. Courtwright, a graduate of the University of Kansas and Rice University, offers upper-division courses in the history of medicine and disease and American history, notably "The U.S. since World War I" and "The 1960s and Vietnam." His current graduate offerings include readings in U.S. history since 1865 and two internationally oriented research seminars, "The Long 1960s" and "Violence and the State."
Courtwright has published influential books on drug use and drug policy, both in American and world history; the social problems of frontier environments on the land and in the air; and the culture war that roiled American politics during and after the 1960s. Whether it is about drugs, violence, aerospace, or cultural politics, his research is concerned with power, policy, and social structure. His ambition is to identify what drives fundamental changes in modern social and political history. He is currently completing another project in this vein, a book about pleasure, vice, and addiction in the modern world.
Courtwright's teaching and research have been recognized by the John A. Delaney Presidential Professorship, the UNF Distinguished Professor Award, five teaching awards, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence Media Award, and fellowships from the American Historical Association, NASA, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, including a 2016-2017 NEH Public Scholar Award.
Source: University of North Florida
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