The author is a prolific book and article writer and very competent. This is yet another of a large number of heavy weight tomes emanating from the USA at the moment; this one I enjoyed more than most. It is subtitled ‘The Men, Machines and Ideas that revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II’ and the Great War and its aftermath take about one quarter of the book. The research is massive, although not always accurate – I don’t think Von Kluck’s 85,000 horses eating two million tons of fodder a day (about 25 tons each!), was one of the causes of the failure of the German advance through Belgium and Northern France in 1914, and I question whether the RFC air crew losses during the Battle of the Somme exceeded 100%, but this only detracted in a minor way from my appreciation of a good story well told.

The aim is to present the story of the revolutionary transformations that the aeroplane has brought to the conduct, consequences and meaning of war in the 100 years of its existence, and not to do yet another set of biographies of famous flyers, or specific details of battles fought and won. This does mean that there are various irritating anomalies – the Sopwith Camel barely gets a mention, (although there is one picture extolling its value as a ground strafer), and the part played by the Americans in the air during the War and afterwards is (perhaps inevitably) over emphasised – which are more than balanced by some of the cogent arguments put forward: for example, Trenchard gets a very bad mauling both for his politicking and his obstinate belief in the power of strategic bombing, for which alone the book gets my vote.

It is compelling reading of a work by a master craftsman.