This theoretically informed research explores what the development and transformation of air travel has meant for societies and individuals. • Brings together a number of interdisciplinary approaches towards the aeroplane and its relation to society • Presents an original theory that our societies are aerial societies, or 'aerealities', and shows how we are both enabled and threatened by aerial mobility • Features a series of detailed international case studies which map the history of aviation over the past century-from the promises of early flight, to World War II bombing campaigns, and to the rise of international terrorism today • Demonstrates the transformational capacity of air transport to shape societies, bodies and individual identities • Offers startling historical evidence and bold new ideas about how the social and material spaces of the aeroplane are considered in the modern era
