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European Civil Aviation in an Era of Hegemonic Nationalism: Infrastructure, Air Mobility, and European Identity Formation, 1919–1933

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Materializing Europe

Abstract

Modern transportation technologies have conflicting political potentials: regarded as tools of nation-building,1 they are also depicted as engines of transnational integration, weakening national control over borders and identities.2 How these opposing potentials play out depends on national geographies, regulatory structures, and political, technological and economic criteria. Post-1918 Europe presents a unique case for study in this regard. Nowhere else do so many states exist within such a small area; the nationalist and integrationist aspects of transport development have therefore often conflicted. Europe is also significant because the integration process that emerged after the Second World War begs the question of what role transport played in this shift. If transportation is an engine of integration, then evidence supporting this view should be visible within the European context.

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Notes

  1. The nation-building aspect of transport technology has been explored notably in relation to railways and aviation. See, for example, Eugen Weber, Peasants intofrenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France (Stanford University Press 1976)

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© 2010 Eda Kranakis

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Kranakis, E. (2010). European Civil Aviation in an Era of Hegemonic Nationalism: Infrastructure, Air Mobility, and European Identity Formation, 1919–1933. In: Badenoch, A., Fickers, A. (eds) Materializing Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292314_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292314_18

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31313-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-29231-4

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