100 books like The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships

A magnificently illustrated guide to the Hindenburg, written and compiled by three airship experts, this book is an amazing resource, not just for its selection of extremely rare photos but for the depth of knowledge that’s contained within. I would say that if you’re going to buy a single book specifically about the Hindenburg, I’d make it this one. It’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to impress people at parties while also introducing you to the Wide World of Zeppelin.

This is an academic book, one that’s engaging, fluidly written, and immensely interesting for anyone intrigued by the longtime German fascination with airships. Rather than the technical details, Syon’s broader focus is on what the wondrous technology meant to Germans and how it shaped their culture and history over the decades. His approach, in other words, puts Zeppelins into context. Put it this way, in 1938 a large-scale survey discovered that Count von Zeppelin, the inventor of the airship and dead for twenty years, ranked among the best recognized of German luminaries. His score was higher than even that of the immortal Beethoven at a time when the Luftwaffe-obsessed Nazis were trying to scrub any memory of their airships. Such a finding is impossible to explain unless you understand the cultural importance of the Zeppelin, making this book critically important. 

This is a collection of ten essays about airship history, mostly concentrating on the business, political, and diplomatic angles. Zeppelins didn’t simply “exist” as objective bits of hardware, but were inextricably enmeshed in the controversies of their era, as Meyer ably and amply demonstrates. If you’re interested in the story-behind-the-story of Zeppelins, this is the book for you, though I’d perhaps wait to dive in until you’ve gotten your feet wet with some basic background reading. Particularly fascinating are Meyer’s investigations into the Zeppeliners’ visits to Detroit to see Henry Ford in the early 1920s, his comparative assessment of French and British airship engineering, and the sad fate of the very last German airship—no, the Hindenburg was not it—before they vanished forever in the age of the airplane.

Robinson was among the finest of airship historians and his work is based on a firm research footing and deep personal knowledge (he also helped edit Harold Dick’s book and traveled round Germany in the 30s). This volume includes chapters on American and British airships, but the real meat is the material on their German counterparts. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, Robinson’s fondness for detail can be a little overwhelming, but there’s no doubt that he knows his stuff, especially on wartime Zeppelins and the bombing campaign. Warning: Giants in the Sky is long out-of-print, unfortunately, but copies are available (for a price).

Having grown up in London in the aftermath of WW2, and playing on its bomb sites, I was well aware of the WW2 Blitz. But like most people, I had no idea that London was heavily bombed during the first war as well. This book is detailed and fascinating, and as well as the raids themselves, it goes into a lot of related topics, such as the black-out, prostitution, munitions factories, pub closing hours and the drive for teetotalism, refugees, women’s work, and the aftermath. Well-written and illustrated with photographs, it’s an excellent look at how London fared through the darkest days of its history.

Wonderfully readable, and full of first-hand accounts via interview and letter, this book tells you what it was really like for the people of Britain during WW1 – the rationing, the blackout, the Blitz, the shortages; how the women took over the men’s jobs, from driving railway engines to ploughing the fields; the emotional impact of dealing with the flood of wounded and the deaths; and the hardship and increasing mental problems as the war seemed never to be going to end.

In an age of codified and tropey stories with uninspired characters and safe plots designed to satisfy whatever market drivers the Big Five publishers are pushing, Trump Sky Alpha gives me hope. It is not about aesthetics, or one-dimensional coffee shop, shirtless Brads, or conforming political views. It is bonkers, aggressive, and hilarious. 

In the aftermath of a nuclear war initiated by Trump, the “Orange Man”, an American journalist, finds herself in a containment zone, documenting the defunct internet’s wild humorous takes: viral memes and twitter’s heated exchanges. The journalist’s assignment soon uncovers references to an enigmatic figure, only known as Birdcrash, one who might know how to stop Trump from flying in a luxurious zeppelin for "the very best people who look terrific.” Yes, you read that right. 

This brilliant and surprisingly sophisticated book has a satisfying rhyming pace that breaks every other page, both visually and aurally, into a“Peek-a-Boo!” Tracing one day in the life of a baby boy in wartime London, it’s full of cues for parents to engage in questions and answers. For instance, the baby in the book goes to the park; the scene contains, inter alia, two perambulators, a double-decker bus, a picket fence, a zeppelin, a church spire, pink flowers, children fishing in a shallow pond, a policeman, boys with a toy boat, a gentleman carrying a walking stick and a rolled-up newspaper…. you get the idea.

This is the book that got me into naval history and made me want to be a naval historian.

Bennett was a serving officer in the RN and the son of a naval officer. He writes with pace, experience, and clarity about the major naval encounters of the First World War. It is a book that would be a good primer for anyone wanting to start the WW1 at sea journey. I purchased it in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge and never looked back.

Successful amphibious operations are hard to pull off. The Allies failure at Gallipoli is well known.

This book tells the story of Operation Albion, the successful German seizure of the Russian islands in the Baltic. A large part of the German Fleet was involved and had to overcome stubborn resistance by the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers of the Russian Fleet to break into the Gulf of Riga.

The Baltic is a little-known theatre of naval operations. The book draws on both Russian and German sources to show how the German Fleet and Army worked hand in hand to achieve a decisive victory in this theatre of the naval war.