This is not a big book, either in size or number of pages. Unfortunately, too much has been crammed into too little space. As a result, the captions to the photographs get mixed up with the narrative, and are not always even near the pictures they refer to. The pictures by and large have not reproduced very well partly because they are too small. There are also some proof reading errors. Having got that off my chest, I admire the scholarship displayed, and learned a great deal new about Austrian aviation in particular, which I had previously considered to be rather inadequate.

Three things come to mind: first, German aircraft from the very earliest days generally looked more beautiful than their Allied contemporaries, and I wonder when this stopped; second, they were certainly more advanced technically, and lastly, two photographs I had not seen before of The Red Baron show me that Michael Schumacher bears an uncanny resemblance to him. I am sure that this book is good, but it is not very user friendly.