A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918

His chapters on art--the suprematist Malevich, the colorful effusions of Robert Delauney--demonstrate how flight literally altered methods of depicting space and motion, not just how airplanes entered artworks. He offers similar insights concerning literature, both high and popular, and throughout illustrates his suggestions with abundant art reproductions, photos, and extended primary source quotations. The book is probably the only think-piece I own that could be mistaken for a diverting coffee-table book. I mean that as a compliment, for the volume is both attractive and searching, and always engaging.


Almost a complete work   August 19, 2003
JFS Films (Wantagh, NY United States)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Wohl's "A Passion for Wings" is a comprehensive look at early aviation history and those who made it happen. His tales from France and Germany leading up to, and during, the Great War are fine. Unfortunately, in treating the American aviation community, Mr. Wohl dwells too much on the Wright brothers at the expense of Glenn H. Curtiss and Alexander Graham Bell who, together, came up with a 'solution' to the 'flying problem' completely independent of Wilbur and Orville. Mr. Bell suggested, and Mr. Curtiss first utilized, ailerons instead of the Wrights' inherently unstable and dangerous 'wing-warping' technique.

During the period of 1908 though the start of WWI, the greatest blight on the nacent aviation industry was the Wrights' rabid patent infringement attack on Curtiss and Bell. By avoiding discussion of this omnipresent story of the time, Wohl completely misses one of the key issues of the day. His mistreatment of Curtiss is glaring given the fact that the U.S. Army purchased thousands of Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" aircraft to train their pilots, while the Wrights were completely out of the airplane manufacturing business by 1912!