Description
Book SynopsisIn
Wings for the Rising Sun, scholar and former airline pilot Jürgen Melzer tells the history of Japanese aviation as a story of international cooperation, competition, and conflict. He details how Japan absorbed technologies from abroad, fostered public enthusiasm for aviation at home, and eventually crafted boldly original flying machines.
Trade ReviewExtremely well-written and beautifully presented…Melzer’s book has excellently made the case that aviation is worthy of study, not merely for understanding the development of the industry itself but also for gaining a much better understanding of the workings of the Japanese state, media, and public during this period. -- Christopher Hood * Journal of Japanese Studies *
Melzer’s history of aviation in Japan speaks to several audiences. For readers interested in the history of aviation, and particularly in the development of aircraft as military technology, the book offers a clear and detailed account that begins with balloon flights in the late nineteenth century and ends with attempts to develop jet engines during the last stages of World War II…[Melzer] brings to his work an intimate knowledge of the engineering of aircraft as well as the pleasures and challenges of flying them…
Wings for the Rising Sun surely has a long career ahead of it as the standard, go-to work on the history of flying in Japan. -- David L. Howell * Pacific Historical Review *
A fascinating study that delves into the complex dynamics of the time—individual, organizational, social, domestic, and international—that helped shape the process, thinking, and outcomes of technology transfer over the years. This book makes a valuable contribution to the scholarship on technology transfer and aviation history at large. -- Takashi Nishiyama * Technology and Culture *
Melzer makes a unique contribution to the extant literature on the history of modern Japanese technology by choosing a subject that has until now been overwhelmingly dominated, at least in the English language, by titles targeting military aircraft buffs. -- M.G. Sheftall * Monumenta Nipponica *
