His Majesty's Airship
Book description
From the bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon comes a stunning historical tale of the rise and fall of the world’s largest airship—and the doomed love story between an ambitious British officer and a married Romanian Princess at its heart.
The tragic story of…
Why read it?
2 authors picked His Majesty's Airship as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Few Americans are aware of the grandiose ambitions of Great Britain’s Imperial Airship Scheme or its tragic consequences.
Gwynne does a terrific job recapturing all the glamour and folly involved in this important but little-known undertaking. Designed to connect England’s major colonies, including Canada, Africa, Australia, and India, by regularly scheduled airship travel, the Imperial Airship schemed resulted in two gigantic, big-rigid airships: the R100 and R101. One set out and successfully completed a transatlantic trip to Canada and back, promising great things to come, while her sister ship embarked on a voyage from England to India a few months…
I am a total geek for the history of things. Whether it’s the history of some food like the eel or the nutmeg or the history of rubber, I’m always ready to settle into a book that gives me an almost obsessive detail of something I hadn’t thought much about.
I now know more than I ever wanted to know about zeppelins, airships, dirigibles, world war weaponry, and the power of relentless, nationalistic, narcissistic marketing.
I read this a few weeks after the implosion of the Titan near the Titanic wreck. All I could think was, “Dang, if only sane…
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