This is an excellent, thoughtful, and thorough summary of the history of air power. Prof. Buckley artfully and succinctly weaves the national strategies, technological, and aeronautical industry capabilities of the major air power countries (and their respective and often competing air services) into a coherent story of the progression of air warfare from balloons to Desert Storm, puncturing a number of conventionally-accepted myths along the way. This is not a treatise on hardware, but on the often conflicting expectations and capabilities of air power over 50 years of modern warfare.