In an unbroken sweep through time, with a combination of text and full-spread graphics, Big History in Flight takes the reader from the earliest times—before any living thing flew—to the modern world of paramotors, fighter jets, and space stations. The format allows milestones and thresholds to stand out naturally in the ongoing progression, allowing the reader to digest more information with less effort.
Readers steer their own ship, opening pop-out panels only when they wish to read the second tier of detail. State-of-the-art theories of lift, buoyancy, and energy systems, along with landmark historical events, compete to fill the pages in the ongoing march through time. But it isn't just physics or even technology that enables human flight. The insight, courage, and drive of individual aviators arises within larger societal systems; sometimes these systems encourage or discourage the quest for flight. Openness to new ideas, market forces, the industrial economy, the demands of war, and the free flow of information are all part of the larger system.
