SCIENCES

Monsters: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology

by Ed. Regis
Basic. Sept. 2015. 352p. photos. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780465065943. $28.99. SCI
COPY ISBN
Regis (Regenesis) here takes readers straight into the inferno of the Hindenburg disaster and the intoxicating but misguided experiments and theories it spawned. Expertly tempering hard facts with keen insight, the author provides a deeper understanding of the foolish desire that led many to financial ruin and death in the name of a machine destined to fail from the time of its inception. The more recent ideas and contraptions too large, too expensive, and too impractical for anything but the movies would be funny if they didn't sound so frightening. From underground atomic bomb detonations that probably won't hurt anyone to a physics experiment big enough to depopulate a town to one man's dream of a real "warp drive," no matter how zany an idea, someone's tried to make it a reality.
VERDICT A must for any aeronautical history buff, this book is as readable and entertaining as a high octane spy thriller and as informative as a semesters worth of graduate level seminars. Regis is a gifted writer with empathy for his subjects, even if they do sound bonkers.
Reviewed by Sara Fiore, Westhampton Free Lib., NY , Sep 15, 2015
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