‘A promise of terror to come’: Air Power and the Destruction of Cities in British Imagination and Experience, 1908–39

In the introduction to her novel Lest Ye Die, British feminist and author Cicely Hamilton reflected back on its origins. In particular, she highlighted her experience of being under fire from aerial bombardment while working in northern France during the early summer of 1918:

Hamilton went on to reflect that such ‘terror from the air’ inherent in future wars would ‘transform the citizen into a nomad, useless and starving’.2 Scattered into

nature and all hope of governance – of the possibility of modern democratic citizenship and of a culture that could produce and sustain a ‘town’ – would fade.