Cold War at 30,000 Feet; The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xi, [3], 351, [9] pages. Illustrations. Notes, Archives, Manuscripts, and Private Interviews. Index. Jeffrey A. Engel, Ph.D., is an award-winning American history scholar and director of the Center for Presidential History at SMU. He is an expert on the U.S. presidency and American diplomatic history. Engel has authored or edited six books, including Into the Desert: Reflections on the Gulf War (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989 (Oxford University Press, 2009); The China Diary of George H.W. Bush: The Making of a Global President (Princeton University Press, 2008); Local Consequences of the Global Cold War (Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008); Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy (Harvard University Press, 2007); and Rethinking Leadership and "Whole of Government" National Security Reform: Problems, Progress, and Prospect (Military Bookshop, 2010). In a gripping story of international power and deception, Jeffrey Engel reveals the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain in a new and far more competitive light. As allies, they fought communism. As rivals, they locked horns over which would lead the Cold War fight. In the quest for sovereignty and hegemony, one important key was airpower, which created jobs, forged ties with the developing world, and, perhaps most importantly in a nuclear world, ensured military superiority. Only the United States and Britain were capable of supplying the post-war world's ravenous appetite for aircraft. The Americans hoped to use this dominance as a bludgeon not only against the Soviets and Chinese, but also against any ally that deviated from Washington's rigid brand of anticommunism. The British hoped to sell planes even beyond the Iron Curtain, reaping profits, improving East-West relations, and garnering the strength to withstand American hegemony. Engel traces the bitter fights between these intimate allies from Europe to Latin America to Asia as each sought control over the sale of aircraft and technology throughout the world.