Lighter Than Air: An Illustrated History of Balloons and Airships

This richly illustrated book chronicles lighter-than-air flight from Archimedes’ discovery of the principle of buoyancy to the latest in sport balloons and plans for future airships. Far more than a timeline of events, Lighter Than Air focuses on the people—flamboyant and daring, heroes and scoundrels—who made history in the sky. Here are the eighteenth-century pioneers who first took to the skies, the peripatetic aeronauts who criss-crossed two continents a century later, the airmen who ma...