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Distributed for Reaktion Books

Airspaces

As mass air transport shrinks the world and requires airport complexes large enough to be regarded as self-contained cities, this book argues that airspace – that transitional area stretching from terminal to terminal, across time zones or between the check-in desk and the baggage carousel – must be regarded as a discrete destination on any map of our age.

At the hub of this exclusive enclave, which rises from the runway to an altitude of several thousand feet and which calmly accommodates the dangers of take-off and landing procedures, lies the airport – the concrete manifestation of airspace. The airport is a locale of anxiety and chance where, in order to expedite air traffic, authority is absolute, time is relative and liberties are always taken.

David Pascoe’s wide-ranging book blends personal observation with detailed discussions of social history, air accidents, landscape, architecture, politics, aesthetics, literature and film to provide a striking account of the airport as a unique space and singular form of modernity, a place fundamental to any accurate sense of what we are now, and where we are going.

"eclectic and intelligent ... a thought-provoking analysis"—Financial Times

"the scope of Mr Pascoe’s rumination is impressive"—The Economist

Distribution by the University of Chicago Press only to customers in the USA and Canada. Customers elsewhere should visit the UK website of Reaktion Books.


304 pages | 6 x 9

Topographics

History of Science


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Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
I. Thresholds of Modernity
II. Landscapes of Pre-Emption
III. Splendours of Space
IV. Theaters of War
V. Cultures of the Terminal
VI. Airs of Finality
References
Photographic Acknowledgements

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