内容简介
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum draws morevisitors than any other museum in the world—90,000 a day in thesummertime—and the exhibit of air travel posters featured in thisunique companion volume combines arresting, colorful art, rarearchival material, and a unique approach to aeronautical history.The posters—most of them never before published—featurebarnstormers, gliders, and flying boats, the earliest passengerflights, the first luxury-liners, mail carriers, jets, and muchmore. Spanning a century and a half, they combine the popular artand the commerce of their eras, with both explored in theentertaining, informative text by a longstanding National Air andSpace Museum curator. From 19th-century circus impresarios offeringrides in gaudy hot-air balloons to the sleek 21st-centuryairliners, the posters provide a fascinating illustrated history offlight as it evolved from an exotic realm inhabited only byvisionaries and daredevils into our modern world of speedy jets andfrequent flyers—no longer extraordinary, perhaps, but still echoingwith the exhilarating thrill and glamorous excitement capturedhere.