Race Through the Skies: The Week the World Learned to Fly - Hardcover

by Martin W. Sandler (Author)

From National Book Award winner Martin W. Sandler, a fascinating look at the week that brought aviation fever to the world

In 1903, the Wright brothers made three brief flights, and no one was there to watch them. Six years later, Wilbur Wright traveled to Europe to evangelicize about aviation and raise money for patents--and the world got aviation fever. That summer, a group of champagne companies organized the first ever international air meet in Rheims, France. They knew they could throw a great party and sell a lot of champagne. They didn't know that this single week would change the course of aviation history. Through remarkable photographs, firsthand accounts, and lively narrative, Marty Sandler tells the story of how the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne marked the public introduction to flight.

Author Biography

Martin W. Sandler is the National Book Award-winning author of 1919 The Year That Changed Anerica, Imprisoned, Lincoln Through the Lens, The Dust Bowl Through the Lens, and Kennedy Through the Lens. He has won five Emmy Awards for his writing for television and is the author of more than sixty books, two of which have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and four of which were YALSA-Nonfiction Award finalists. Sandler has taught American history and American studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and at Smith College, and lives in Massachusetts.