Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship - Hardcover

Hiam, C. Michael

3.91

90 ratings by Goodreads

9781611685602: Dirigible Dreams: The Age of the Airship

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611685605 ISBN 13: 9781611685602

Publisher: Foredge, 2014

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Here is the story of airships--manmade flying machines without wings--from their earliest beginnings to the modern era of blimps. In postcards and advertisements, the sleek, silver, cigar-shaped airships, or dirigibles, were the embodiment of futuristic visions of air travel. They immediately captivated the imaginations of people worldwide, but in less than fifty years dirigible became a byword for doomed futurism, an Icarian figure of industrial hubris. Dirigible Dreams looks back on this bygone era, when the future of exploration, commercial travel, and warfare largely involved the prospect of wingless flight. In Dirigible Dreams, C. Michael Hiam celebrates the legendary figures of this promising technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--the pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, the doomed polar explorers S. A. Andr�e and Walter Wellman, and the great Prussian inventor and promoter Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, among other pivotal figures--and recounts fascinating stories of exploration, transatlantic journeys, and floating armadas that rained death during World War I. While there were triumphs, such as the polar flight of the Norge, most of these tales are of disaster and woe, culminating in perhaps the most famous disaster of all time, the crash of the Hindenburg.

This story of daring men and their flying machines, dreamers and adventurers who pushed modern technology to--and often beyond--its limitations, is an informative and exciting mix of history, technology, awe-inspiring exploits, and warfare that will captivate readers with its depiction of a lost golden age of air travel. Readable and authoritative, enlivened by colorful characters and nail-biting drama, Dirigible Dreams will appeal to a new generation of general readers and scholars interested in the origins of modern aviation.

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About the Author:

C. MICHAEL HIAM, PhD, is the author of A Monument to Deceit: Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars and Eddie Shore and That Old Time Hockey. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Review:

"A diligent researcher, Mr. Hiam quotes judiciously and generally has an eye for a good story and the detail that brings it to life. Dirigible Dreams is a work of solid reportage, illustrated with enchanting photographs of the monster crafts."-- "Wall Street Journal"

"Hiam's thesis offers a novel way to think about the history of innovation: that useful technologies sometimes die off for circumstantial reasons. As it turns out, the story of dirigibles offers another insight as well. If a technology is impressive enough, it can have a propaganda value far beyond its real importance."-- "Boston Globe"

"A fascinating book -- that is superbly illustrated and beautifully written."-- "Aviation News"

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