MICHIE, Allan A. Keep the Peace Through Air Power.
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1944.
First edition, signed by the author, from the personal library of Air Chief Marshal Lord Portal.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, gilt titles to spine, photographic plates, 172 pp. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper: “Allan A. Michie, London - 1944.”
A striking wartime argument for the decisive political and military role of air power, written in London in April 1944, after the great Allied bombing campaigns had reshaped the war, but before the atomic bomb had transformed the meaning of aerial warfare altogether. Michie’s central claim is that air power must not only win the war, but keep the peace afterwards. In chapters such as “Air Power: The Sword of Justice,” “Germany Is Already Preparing Her Third World War” and “Japan - The Germany of the Far East,” he argues that Germany and Japan must be disarmed from the air, watched from the air, and restrained by an international air force capable of striking before militarism can revive.
Allan A. Michie was an American journalist, author and war correspondent associated with TIME, LIFE and The Reader’s Digest. He had reported from Britain during the war, co-authored Their Finest Hour with Walter Graebner, and wrote widely on Allied strategy, aviation and the conduct of modern war. Seen in retrospect, Keep the Peace Through Air Power occupies a fascinating position: it is a pre-atomic vision of post-war security, written just before Hiroshima and Nagasaki made the control of air-delivered destruction the central strategic problem of the modern age.
This copy is especially apposite as part of the library of Lord Portal, Chief of the Air Staff during the Second World War and one of the key British figures in the strategic air campaign. Though not dedicated to Portal, the connection is highly resonant: Michie’s book addresses the very questions of bombing, deterrence, air supremacy and post-war enforcement that lay at the centre of Portal’s command.
Condition: a very good copy overall. The blue cloth remains bright and firm, with only light rubbing to extremities and modest softening to spine ends and corners. Gilt spine lettering slightly dulled but legible. Contents lightly toned with scattered small marks and occasional spotting, but generally clean, sound and pleasing. No dust jacket.
