Weekend pilots : technology, masculinity, and private aviation in postwar America / Alan Meyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meyer, Alan, 1965- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Private flying--History--20th century--United States.

Private flying.

Air pilots--United States--Psychology.

Air pilots.

Air pilots--Sex differences--United States.

World War, 1939-1945--Influence.

World War, 1939-1945.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (325 p.)

Place of Publication:

Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"After August 1945, millions of U.S. servicemen formed a tidal wave of people returning to civilian life--locating or returning to work, heading to school under the GI Bill, marrying and starting families. With much profit, historians in various fields have examined this effort to recover normalcy. Meyer points out that a great many of the vets, not all of them trained military airmen, also took up the hobby of flying, and he here explores what became a postwar phenomenon, the spectacular growth of American private aviation (i.e., neither military nor commercial) and the rise of the "weekend pilot." He takes readers inside a culture that turns out to be something of a throwback: It required exceptionally high skill levels; involved considerable risk; encouraged, demanded, fierce personal independence; indulged a post-military fatalism, even among the younger sort who later joined the movement; and above all granted one membership in a self-consciously white, male circle of the initiated. How does one explain the development of this peculiar culture? Meyer searches for answers in public records, trade association prints, newspaper accounts, and private papers and interviews. He has put together an impressive first book. Norman Mailer once argued that most right-leaning politics since the 1970's draws upon the anxieties and grievances of displaced white American males. He may have spoken best for himself, but this book will give credence to the observation"--Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4214-1859-2

OCLC:

933525212