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    Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
    Unavailable
    Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
    Unavailable
    Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
    Ebook416 pages7 hours

    Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight

    By Paul Hoffman

    3.5/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    This ebook does not include illustrations.

    From the author of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, winner of the prestigious Rhone-Poulenc science award: the history of aviation told through the extraordinary story of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the forgotten man who battled to be the first to free himself from the confines of the earth.

    Ask most people who flew the first aeroplane and you'll get the same response: Orville and Wilbur Wright. But ask a Brazilian the same question and you will get a different answer: Alberto Santos-Dumont, the man they have crowned the 'father of aviation'.

    Fearless Alberto Santos-Dumont was a slight and wiry man who built flying machines that could hold no one heavier than himself and required a daredevil dexterity to stay aloft. Never before or since has there been an aeroplane in which the pilot has had to stand up for the whole flight (he had to perfect the rumba in order to get his Bird of Prey into the air at all). Nor has anyone else had a personal flying machine – a small powered balloon that he kept tied to a lamp post outside his apartment when he was not bar-hopping, handing the reins of the airship to the doorman at his favourite night spot. His genius and charisma led him to be celebrated in Paris, London and New York: he dined with the Cartiers, the Rothschilds and the Roosevelts, and fast became the darling of the press.

    With his blithe faith in the future of technology, Santos-Dumont did not foresee the destructive power of his beloved machines. Yet his indomitable spirit was slowly crushed as competition grew and the skies became full of hazardous aircraft. With the dawn of World War I, he saw their potential for devastation and began to blame himself for every fatality. The guilt placed too great a weight on his mind, and as he became distracted from his aeronautical dream, family and friends began to fear for his sanity. On his last attempt to fly he glued feathers to his arms and tried to launch himself through a window in a sanatorium.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateNov 24, 2016
    ISBN9780007441082
    Unavailable
    Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
    Author

    Paul Hoffman

    Paul Hoffman is the publisher of ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’. He is the host of the five-part PBS series ‘Great Minds of Science’ and a frequent correspondent on television shows such as ‘CBS This Morning’ and ‘The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.’ For ten years, Hoffman was the president and editor-in-chief of ‘Discover’ magazine. He is the author of ten books including ‘Archimedes’ Revenge.’ He lives in Chicago, Illinois and Woodstock, New York.

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    Reviews for Wings of Madness

    3.5/5

    27 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An interesting read, if not a page-turner: Hoffman's style is pretty dry. I knew of Santos-Dumont from a childhood obsession with anything to do with planes and flight, but not very much. I think anyone would struggle to sum up this extremely eccentric and obsessively private individual who also displayed a propensity for showboating. Hoffman does probably as as good a job as anyone could, and I also learnt some things about the Wright Brothers I never knew before.
    • 3/5
      I agree that the fascinating, tragic life of the Brazilian aeronaut Santos-Dumont should make for a great story, but this wasn't it. I couldn't finish the book. I got tired of reading about each balloon and its technical specifications. I like history and technology, but not this detailed. I wanted to learn more about what made Santos-Dumont tick.
    • 4/5
      By the time I got around to reading this book, I'll admit that I was wondering if it was a redundant exercise in the wake of seeing the PBS documentary based on Hoffman's work. Such is not the case. While the TV program plays up the technological successes in Santo-Dumont's career the book is more of a life, and deals quite forthrightly with the issues relating to the man's life-style, sexuality, and the question of just when Santos-Dumont's "madness" began to assert itself. Hoffman also goes further in the book in terms of placing the achievements of Santos-Dumont in the context of the technological fervor of the time, and the activities of his fellow aviation pioneers.
    • 4/5
      The title is somewhat misleading: this book covers Santos-Dumont's early experiments with powered balloons and airplanes, but skips from 1906 to 1932, the years where he supposedly went mad with guilt and grief for the use of his inventions in World War I. That said, the rest of the book is really interesting. I'd never heard of Santos-Dumont, not even his sort-of rivalry with the Wright Brothers. He was an eccentric character, as one might expect of an inventor in such a dangerous arena. I wish more had been known about his personal life and feelings, but the descriptions of his work in aviation were fascinating. Definitely recommended if you're interested in the early years of man's quest for flight.