Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity Through the First World War

Flight author and former Air Force Historian Hallion has produced an expertly written single-volume history of flight, from Icarus and Daedalus to England's twin-engine""Bloody Paralyser"" of WWI, that has the potential to become the standard work on the subject. The book's strength comes from its deft reconsideration of flight within a much broader context than other historians placed it--i.e.,""the context of prevailing social, cultural, technological, scientific, political, and military history."" Aided by numerous illustrations and archival photographs, Hallion's analysis is artful, and his writing consistently clear, whether the subject is the Chinese kite of the second century, the technical accomplishments of Enlightenment designers, the dominance of balloons and airships in the 18th and 19th centuries, the development of American and European aeronautics, or the crucial incorporation of flight technology by the military. Along with profiles of major figures such as the Wright Brothers and Octave Chanute, Hallion takes care to bring to light lesser-known figures such as Sir George Cayley,""the first of the modern pioneers"" of aviation, whose airships and the publicity surrounding them, Hallion expertly notes, were the inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe's""Balloon Hoax."" Hallion's efforts to debunk some of flight history's myths occasionally seem unnecessary, such as his explanation that the Wright Brothers did not work in isolation from their contemporaries (a notion already deflated by T. A. Heppenheimer's First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane). But the bulk of this valuable work should stand the test of time.