Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919-1939 (Studies in Imperalism)

Imperialism without violence cannot be imagined. This book examines imperial violence in one of its more troubling aspects — the use of bombers as a means of oppression in the British Empire.

Between the world wars the main task of the RAF was to crush tribal rebellions against British rule. This is the first full-length study of the subject. Focusing upon Britain's informal empire in the Middle East, it also ranges as far as Africa and the North West Frontier.

The independent peacetime role of air policing, argues David Omissi, ensured the survival of the RAF during the lean financial years after the Great War. Overseas the bomber extended the reach of the State into the swamplands, deserts and mountains along the marches of empire. But tribal societies were not helpless victims — they could adapt and even fight back, sometimes with success. Air policing had its humanitarian critics, who pointed to the contrast between the rhetoric of the 'civilising mission' and the rough justice of the bomber.

This book is based almost entirely on unpublished documents. Its searching analysis of rebellion and repression will appeal to historians in a variety of fields. But careful scholarship had been combined with clear and elegant prose, as the general reader will discover.