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Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Meyer, Alan, 1965- author.

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

Publication Info. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.

Item Status

Description 1 online resource
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
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 1970s 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.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Private flying -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Private flying.
United States.
History.
Chronological Term 20th century
Subject Air pilots -- United States -- Psychology.
Air pilots.
Psychology.
Air pilots -- Sex differences -- United States.
Sex differences.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Influence.
World War (1939-1945)
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Other Form: Print version: Meyer, Alan, 1965- author. Weekend pilots 9781421418582 (DLC) 2015010636 (OCoLC)907657567
ISBN 9781421418599 electronic book
1421418592 electronic book
9781421418582
1421418584
1421418592 (electronic)