Books by John M. Collins

Let's Do Launch!These aren't your ordinary paper airplanes. These airplanes loop, circle back, flap their wings and spin, tumble, soar, and, of course, glide. In his best-selling book, THE GLIDING FLIGHT, award-winning paper airplane designer John Michael Collins introduced us to the craft of paper airplane folding. In FANTASTIC FLIGHT, the much-anticipated sequel, Collins reveals the next generation of fold-and-fly fun. He explains how to craft 24 new and amazing flying machines-like the Looper, the Bat plane, the Super Canard, and the Manta Ray-using just single sheets of paper. Featuring a wide range of paper airplanes, from simple designs suitable for young children to more complex planes that, believe it or not, will stay aloft indefinitely, FANTASTIC FLIGHT presents clear, step-by-step folding instructions for an activity the whole family can enjoy. As an extra bonus for teachers, Collins includes a special section on planning educational paper airplane contests complete with lesson ideas. FANTASTIC FLIGHT reveals how to combine aerodynamics, origami, and a single sheet of paper to create phenomenal flying fun.THE GLIDING FLIGHT has sold more than 40,000 copies.

John M. Collins presents the first comprehensive history of martial law in the early modern period. He argues that rather than being a state of exception from law, martial law was understood and practiced as one of the King's laws. Further, it was a vital component of both England's domestic and imperial legal order. It was used to quell rebellions during the Reformation, to subdue Ireland, to regulate English plantations like Jamestown, to punish spies and traitors in the English Civil War, and to build forts on Jamaica. Through outlining the history of martial law, Collins reinterprets English legal culture as dynamic, politicized, and creative, where jurists were inspired by past practices to generate new law rather than being restrained by it. This work asks that legal history once again be re-integrated into the cultural and political histories of early modern England and its empire.