This is a breathless romp through a very busy time in the aviation world, and the author has been very partial in what he writes about. For example, he says that it is not his aim to detail the Great War, which is slightly surprising given the time scale, but he does go on about the bombing of England whilst ignoring the Cuxhaven raid in 1914. As this was the world’s first carrier air strike – and British – I find it odd to do so. He says that the strike from HMS Furious in July 1918 against Tondern was the first, which it wasn’t. However there are some nice touches: I learnt that ‘Colonel’ Cody’s son was killed flying with the RFC in 1917, so that they were the first father and son to die in aeroplanes, and I enjoyed the description of the social whirl that the flying clubs engendered before the War. It is nice to have a British overview to balance the masses of weighty American tomes which have passed across my xenophobic desk recently. Most of the photographs are badly reproduced which is a pity as many of them are new to me. Although there is not a great deal new about the Great War in it, I enjoyed this book very much.