By Scott Hamilton

Dec. 9, 2025, © Leeham News: I thought 2025 was rather light on good, new aviation books (my own, The Rise and Fall of Boeing and the Way Back, being an obvious exception!). So, there will be a couple of non-aviation books on this year’s list and some that were published earlier but which I read this year.

Skies of Thunder

Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World, by Caroline Alexander (2024).

This is a book for which misplaced expectations will drive the reader’s enjoyment. The title and the cover imply the focus is on flying the Hump, the massive airlift of World War II over the Himalaya Mountains from India into China. In reality, this book is more focused on the greater China-Burma-India theatre. Alexander describes the politics within the United States military and War Department, all the way up to President Roosevelt; and between the US and Britain, which had very different views of the viability of supporting China’s leader, Chiang Kai- Shek, whose corruption was legendary even in real time, and whose motives were more about maintaining his position vis-à-vis the Chinese Communists.

The CBI theatre didn’t get the attention that the European/African war against Germany and Italy did, nor the war against the Japanese. It’s an interesting story filled with descriptions of the characters involved. If your expectations are thus set, this is a good read.

However, for a far more detailed description of the Hump war, 2012’s China’s Wings by Gregory Crouch is the better book.

Free Ride

Free Ride, Heartbreak, Courage and the 20,000 Mile Motorcycle Journey That Changed My Life, by Noraly Schoenmaker (2025) is an interesting non-aviation book. If you’ve seen the Long Way Up adventure series with actor Ewan McGregor, Free Ride is very similar. However, McGregor has an entourage and film crew for his series (which is quite good). Free Ride is about a young, single woman taking an adventure through India, Asia, the Middle East, and back to her home in the Netherlands.

You’d think a young, single woman would be nuts to take off on such an adventure alone. Schoenmaker explains why she did so, and how she met her challenges with help from locals along the way. This is an inspiring story for women and men alike.

Unions Flying High

Unions Flying High: Airline Labor Power in the 21st Century, by Ted Reed (2025). Reed is the author of a couple of airline books, and his latest is about the labor movement within the US airline industry.

To be sure, this is very much a niche book. Nevertheless, it reveals how labor unions are about more than just wages and benefits. The labor movement in the US has been under siege since President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981, followed by the plethora of bankruptcies and failed carriers following airline deregulation. (See Flying for Peanuts, below.)

For airline geeks and historians, this is a worthwhile read.

The Rise and Fall of Boeing

The Rise and Fall of Boeing and the Way Back, by Scott Hamilton (2025).

This is my second book, a sequel of sorts to Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing. Rise and Fall focuses on Boeing, its rise to commercial aviation dominance, and its descent to near bankruptcy. I delayed finishing this by two years because of the Jan. 5, 2024, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 door plug blowout on a brand new Boeing 737-9 MAX that plunged a recovering Boeing into a brand new crisis, and to see Boeing finally, finally work its way on a path back to recovery. This recovery has years to go, but absent some disaster or some event outside its control, Boeing is at long last working its way out of mediocrity that was nearly 30 years in the making.

Air Wars

Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing, by Scott Hamilton (2021).

Air Wars tells the story of the market, product, and sales strategic combats between Airbus and Boeing, with plenty of stories about John Leahy, the Airbus super-salesman who bedeviled Boeing for 33 years. Boeing was slow to recognize the threat posed by Airbus and Leahy, and this complacency began to enable Airbus to overtake Boeing as the world’s dominant airliner producer. This book was delayed 18 months to include the 737 MAX grounding and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Flying for Peanuts

Flying for Peanuts, Tough Deals, Steep Bargains, and Revolution in the Skies, By Frank Lorenzo (2024). This is Lorenzo’s memoirs, detailing his family’s immigration from Spain, his college years (including being a driver delivering soft drinks as a union member), the creation of his airline consulting company working out of a New York Public Library, and the purchase of Texas International Airlines (TXI).

TXI was the smallest, weakest, and most financially vulnerable of what was then known as the US local service carriers. Lorenzo and his partner bought the airline in 1971, the same year Southwest Airlines began operations. Southwest’s irascible CEO, Lamar Muse, vowed to put TXI out of business. TXI was regulated by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board; Southwest was regulated by the Texas Aeronautics Commission. The latter allowed Southwest to set low prices and easily expand. TXI had to go through the slow, bureaucratic CAB. It was essentially regulation vs deregulation, and Lorenzo was the first to realize the threat to the regulated carriers.

When federal deregulation was adopted in 1979, Lorenzo realized that he had to grow rapidly as well as cut bloated labor costs. The unions opposed him at every turn. There were wins and losses on both sides, and in the end, Lorenzo was driven out of the airline business by the unions.

Although memoirs usually are overly tainted in favor of making the author look good, Lorenzo’s book is a good balance and surprisingly honest. I collaborated with him to finish the book when his previous collaborator died. Despite my own bias, I can tell you this is a book well worth reading.