Commercial aviation took shape in Hong Kong as the city developed into a powerful economy. Rather than accepting air travel as an inevitability in the era of global mobility, John Wong argues that Hong Kong’s development into a regional and global airline hub was not preordained. By underscoring the shifting process through which this hub emerged, Hong Kong Takes Flight aims to describe globalization and global networks in the making. Viewing the globalization of the city through the prism of its airline industry, Wong examines how policymakers and businesses asserted themselves against international partners and competitors in a bid to accrue socioeconomic benefits, negotiated their interests in Hong Kong’s economic success, and articulated their expressions of modernity.

The subject of regulation is one of the most vital and troublesome in our system of government. In this detailed study of early and mid-twentieth-century regulation of commercial aviation Emmette S. Redford illustrates what happens when government regulates a particular industry.

He first sets forth the perspectives for a study of an area of regulation and develops an argument for eclectic perspectives in the study of selected systems, or universes, of social action, such as the performance of an economic function under government regulation.

These perspectives are illustrated in the following series of case studies on regulation of commercial aviation:

1. The significance of belief patterns on the content of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.
2. The role of Congress in the regulation of commercial aviation in a two-year period.
3. The interactions of Congress, the president, and the regulated industry in strengthening safety regulation through passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958.
4. The actions of the Civil Aeronautics Board on a set of complicated economic issues in the General Passenger Fare Investigation.
5. The position of the Air Transport Association in the regulatory pattern.

In "An Essay on Evaluation" Redford summarizes what is revealed in the case studies that is significant with respect to the system of government regulation. He searches for standards for evaluating a system of social control, or for evaluating parts of it, and relates his conclusions to issues regarding the beneficence of a system of regulated private supply of a service.

The Regulatory Process is a study of interest to the aviation industry, to students of regulation of the economy, and to those who seek an understanding of social systems.