Speedbird: the Complete History of BOAC

摘要

Robin Higham's latest book, published posthumously, is a history of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and is an invaluable addition to the historiography of British civil aviation. It acts as an effective follow up to his 1960 book Britain's Imperial Air Routes, 1918-39. Speedbird was actually written in the 1970s and completed in 1978. However, it was sequestered by British Airways (BA) until 2003 and took an additional ten years to be published. Originally, the manuscript was delayed at the request of BA while they worked with the government to finance Concorde in the late 1970s and then privatise in the early 1980s. Despite the resolution of both issues by 1985, BA refused to grant Higham the rights until 2003. One of the conditions for the manuscript's release was it needed to be vetted by BA. This vetting does manifest itself in the book, as it is not particularly critical of the organisation. Nonetheless, Higham has done an admirable job with unprecedented access to BOAC records. He has woven them into a lengthy, insightful and enjoyable narrative, one that can be recommended to anyone with an interest in aviation history or post-war British history.