pt. 1: Preparing the way: From antiquity to the enlightenment. Of dreams and desires. Conflicting ideas and societies -- pt. 2: Ethereal flight: Inventing the balloon and airship, 1782-1900. The astonishing year. Exploiting the balloon. The quest for steerable flight -- pt. 3: Winged flight: Early conceptions of the airplane, 1792-1903. Sir George Cayley and the birth of aeronautics. The frustrated hopes of French aeronautics. Anglo-American school of power and lift -- pt. 4: The airmen triumphant: Lilienthal, Chanute, and the Wrights, 1891-1905. The Lilienthal legacy. Enter the Wrights. "They done it, they done it, damned if they ain't flew!" -- Prt.5: Europe resurgent, 1905-1909. "L'affaire Wright". "The flying industry is already born". "The age of flight is the age we live in." -- pt. 6: Expansion, incorporation, maturation: Beginning the aerial age, 1910-1914. Global expansion. The loss of innocence. Triumphs of speed and distance -- pt. 7: Tennyson fulfilled: Putting prophecy into practice, 1914 and afterwards. Into the whirlwind. Grappling in the central blue. Reflections on the beginning of the aerial age. Afterword: Technology of light or technology of darkness? : Considering flight after 9/11/01.
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