Wolfgang Langewiesche

America from the Air

An Aviator's Story
Herausgeber: Hokanson, Drake; Kratz, Carol

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"I am no helmeted, begoggled hero of the skies; picture me bookish, bespectacled, unable to hold even a teacup without rattling it. As a pilot, I am merely an amateur, and I know it.... I shouldn't be talking. But I can't help talking. For you take the air: the thin, substanceless air that can be made to bear a man; you take America; and you take an airplane, which of all the works of man is the nearest to a living being -- you take those things and mix them up, and they will act as a drug which will knock all proper reticence right out of you. And so, here I go talking..." -- from America from the Air In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made his historic solo flight across the Atlantic; Amelia Earhart became the first woman to do so in 1932. And so was born the golden age of flying. Aviators became the era's new heroes and the airplane its icon. In early 1930s Chicago, a German-born graduate student became fascinated by the airplane and its usefulness as a great geographic and sociological tool. Wolfgang Langewiesche sold his car and used his meager salary to pay for flying lessons at 25 cents a minute. With the same passion America had taken to the road a decade earlier, Langewiesche took to the air. He eagerly inhaled the landscape and breathed observations about the country, writing a series of books that describe the heady excitement and freedom of flight and the stunning views of his adopted country from an entirely new vantage point -- the sky. This new edited volume revives the writings from two of his now out-of-print books. America from the Air draws from Langewiesche's classic account of his early experiences as a pilot, I'll Take the High Road (first published in 1939 andpraised by the New York Times as "a stirring and revealing story, told with sensitiveness and lucidity and with the warmth of a modest personal charm"), and selections from his 1951 memoir, A Flier's World, to create a distinctive book that provides a pioneering look at the Americ

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Seitenzahl: 260
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Mai 2004
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 371g
• ISBN-13: 9780801878190
• ISBN-10: 0801878195
• Artikelnr.: 22480210

Autorenporträt

Wolfgang Langewiesche (1907-2002) was born in Düsseldorf in 1907 and emigrated to the United States in 1929 after studying at the London School of Economics. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University and proceeded to the University of Chicago as a doctoral candidate and research assistant in political science. He worked as a test pilot as well as a writer and editor, contributing to numerous publications including Life and the Saturday Evening Post. Drake Hokanson is an author, photographer, pilot, and assistant professor of mass communications at Winona State University. Carol Kratz is an author, editor, pilot, educator, and physician assistant. William Langewiesche is a national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and the author of four books, including American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center.