American Combat Planes of the 20th Century by Ray Wagner. Jack Bacon & Company, 2004. $65.00. 758 pages, 1,700 photographs.

Ray Wagner has spent more than fifty years in first-hand research on American, German, and Soviet aircraft. That is not a line from a publisher's blurb — it is a statement of fact that explains why this book is what it is. Wagner has the ability to seek out and relate the most important facts, to place aircraft in the context of their times, and to add the kind of insight that humanizes a story that could otherwise become a catalog of specifications and serial numbers.

This is far more than an updated version of his previous American Combat Aircraft. The text has been extensively modified, many new photographs have been added, and the coverage extends through the modern era — including the Lockheed Martin F/A-22 and the F-35. Wagner has not simply brought the old book forward in time; he has reconsidered and rewritten throughout.

The size and layout of the book alone tells the history of American military aviation: the number of companies that tried to build combat aircraft, the number of experimental types that never reached production, the extraordinary range of approaches to the same tactical and strategic problems. You see the great old names — Curtiss, Vought, Seversky, even Brewster — and all their many efforts, the successful and the unsuccessful together, which is the only honest way to tell the story.

Wagner's method of subdividing the material is by era rather than alphabetically: "The Biplane Period, 1917 to 1932" and so on through the jet age. Each era opens with a discussion of the role of the combat aircraft in that period, followed by a systematic treatment of each type — fighters, bombers, observation aircraft, patrol boats — presented alongside their contemporaries so that the reader can see how advances filtered through the industry and the services. The effect is to show not just what was built but why, and how each generation of aircraft grew from and reacted against the one before it.

The description of each type is complete: specifications, number produced, designer, disposition of the prototypes. But Wagner never loses the human element. Almost every page is enlivened with tales of heroes such as Harold R. Harris, or designers such as Ottorino Pomilio — figures who would otherwise exist only as footnotes, brought forward into the light by a writer who understands that the machines were made by people and were flown by people and that without the people the machines are just aluminum and wire.

The 1,700 photographs are remarkable — in their range, their quality, and the care with which they have been selected and captioned. Many are rare or unpublished; none are filler.

This book is an invaluable addition to the library of everyone who loves airplanes. At $65.00 for 758 pages and 1,700 photographs, it is also one of the better values in aviation publishing. Highly recommended without reservation.