Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air Author: Richard Holmes | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CNQ2P16 | Format: PDF
Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air Description
**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)**
**Time Magazine 10 Top Nonfiction Books of 2013**
**The New Republic Best Books of 2013**
In this heart-lifting chronicle, Richard Holmes, author of the best-selling
The Age of Wonder, follows the pioneer generation of balloon aeronauts, the daring and enigmatic men and women who risked their lives to take to the air (or fall into the sky). Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet is a compelling adventure that only Holmes could tell.
His accounts of the early Anglo-French balloon rivalries, the crazy firework flights of the beautiful Sophie Blanchard, the long-distance voyages of the American entrepreneur John Wise and French photographer Felix Nadar are dramatic and exhilarating. Holmes documents as well the balloons used to observe the horrors of modern battle during the Civil War (including a flight taken by George Armstrong Custer); the legendary tale of at least sixty-seven manned balloons that escaped from Paris (the first successful civilian airlift in history) during the Prussian siege of 1870-71; the high-altitude exploits of James Glaisher (who rose) seven miles above the earth without oxygen, helping to establish the new science of meteorology); and how Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jules Verne felt the imaginative impact of flight and allowed it to soar in their work.
A seamless fusion of history, art, science, biography, and the metaphysics of flights,
Falling Upwards explores the interplay between technology and imagination. And through the strange allure of these great balloonists, it offers a masterly portrait of human endeavor, recklessness, and vision.
(With 24 pages of color illustrations, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.)
From the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 24372 KB
- Print Length: 441 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0007481063
- Publisher: Pantheon (October 29, 2013)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CNQ2P16
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,273 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #28
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > Transportation > Aviation - #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Aeronautics & Astronautics - #32
in Books > Travel > Food, Lodging & Transportation > Air Travel
- #28
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > Transportation > Aviation - #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Aeronautics & Astronautics - #32
in Books > Travel > Food, Lodging & Transportation > Air Travel
When I was a kid, we lived near a golf course, and I can remember seeing the hot air balloons occasionally drifting over our house. At the time, I vowed to one day ride in one myself, something I have yet to do, but the dream was rekindled after reading "Falling Upwards: How We Took To the Air," by Richard Holmes, a history of ballooning that is dramatic, intriguing and beguiling. He begins by describing the harrowing trip of Major John Money, who in 1785 raised money for a hospital, and who came to grief, but returned to ballooning undaunted. The book ends with a detailed account of three "extreme balloonists" who made a perilous polar expedition to the North Pole, of which photos and personal accounts have survived.
According to Holmes, himself a balloonist, balloonists come in all shapes and sizes, but have a few things in common: a passion to be airborne, and resilience in the face of danger. Like passionate equestrians, they tend to get back in the saddle (or basket) fairly soon after an accident.
As for their chosen mode of transport, balloons have been used throughout the ages for far more than simply pleasure flights. Their uses include:
1) Bringing messages to loved ones during war, including during the siege of Paris by the Prussians in the 1870's, as well as during the Civil War.
2) To advertise and generate publicity. Newspapers have solicited accounts from balloonists, and writer Guy Maupassant used a balloon to kick off his book tour.
3) As a symbol of women's rights: Women performers who used balloons to dazzle the crowd were seen as suffragettes.
4) Exploration: Used to study weather conditions and geology among other things.
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