The Genesis of Flight: The Aeronautical History Collection of Colonel Richard Gimbel [With CD]

By Richard Gimbel and Tom D. Crouch

The Genesis of Flight illustrates one of the most prestigious aeronautical history collections in existence, covering the history of man's dream of flight from antiquity to the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the 20th century. The items included are drawn from more than 20,000 objects that vividly reflect both humanity's vision and its fulfillment. Five-thousand-year-old seals carved from semiprecious stones and used to inscribe clay tablets record the earliest conception of flight. Among the collection's thousands of books are priceless volumes printed before 1501. Many, such as Robert Hooke's Philosophical Collections (1682), are serious, scientific studies of the possibility of flight. Others are about imaginary voyages into space and to other worlds, including Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1547), Cyrano de Bergerac's account of a voyage to the moon first published in 1650, and, of course, the 19th-century classics of Jules Verne. More than 2,000 prints, portraits, engravings, etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs comprise a unique and arresting pictorial history of aeronautics. Important letters written by pioneers of flight--Montgolfier, Blanchard, Lunardi, Lilienthal, Count von Zeppelin, Santos-Dumont, Langley, and the Wright brothers--are to be found among the collection's manuscript holdings. There are also rare commemorative medallions, sheet music, posters, dime novels, postcards and postage stamps, early flight manuals, catalogues of aircraft equipment, match boxes, and children's games and toys--all recording, in one way or another, humanity's aspirations to fly.The collection was assembled by Richard Gimbel (1898-1970), who began collecting while serving with the 8th U.S. Army Air Force in England during World War II, and continued after becoming curator of aeronautical literature at Yale University. The collection was donated to the United States Air Force Academy upon his death.The contributors include Tom D. Crouch, National Air and Space Museum; Clive Hart, University of Essex, England; Paul Maravelas, University of Minnesota Libraries; Ellen Morris, University of Pennsylvania; Dominick A. Pisano, National Air and Space Museum; Holly Pittman, University of Pennsylvania; and Edward Rochette, American Numismatics Association.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0295978112
• ISBN13: 9780295978116
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 4.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 9.4" x 12.4"

Customer Reviews

The Gimbel Collection

Widespread among mankind is the capacity to dream, to imagine, to visualize what might be and what could come to pass. And so it has been, manifestly, with dreams of flight. Since humans first took time to notice birds, bats and flying insects, man's mind has formed the wish to emulate them - to be able to fly - to rise above earth's surface, moving freely in air and space. Visual artists, painters, sculptors, and writers, have, over the centuries, depicted these dreams. From times many centuries before the mythology of Daedalus and Icarus have come historical depictions of imagined flights by man. A monumental collection of such depictions was assembled by the late Colonel Richard Gimbel. Scion of the founding family of Gimbel's Department Stores, Richard was a man of diverse interests, notable talents and tastes, and wealth sufficient to enable him to be a collector with uniquely wide sweep. Serving as a Colonel in the Eighth Air Force Service Command in England in 1943, Richard Gimbel became fascinated with those items which showed man's historic interest in personal flight. For the next thirty years of his life, he devoted increasing talents and capability to the collection of rare items related to man's flight. Retired Colonel Gimbel spent twenty years at Yale University as Professor of Air Science and Trustee of the Library. At the time of his death his personal collection of aeronautica, which he never catalogued, numbered over one hundred thousand items. Due in large part to the interest and influence of Charles Lindbergh, the Gimbel collection was willed to the Library of the United States Air Force Academy. There it resides today, an intellectual landmark, part of the professional education of Academy cadets, and, in the care of a permanent archivist, available to scholars and the public. This current book, The Genesis of Flight, is a fortunate collaboration of the Friends of the United States Air Force Academy Library, and The University of Washington Press. Seven highly-qualified contributors have given us the text of this superb volume on the Gimbel collection. Illustrations of some 300 of the collection's many items are shown in this edition. The writing, editing, printing, and binding of this book are all excellent. Cost of the book might be viewed as a bit pricey, particularly when compared to the prices of some of the content free drivel available in today's publishing world. But I view my new copy as one of the greatest bargains I have had the good sense to purchase lately. The purchase price of The Genesis of Flight covers not only the magnificent printed volume. Nested in the back interior cover is a compact disc, playable on your PC or MAC, This disc, with audio and video, provides a magnificent companion to the book. It gives the reader/viewer an unparalleled opportunity to immerse oneself in the Gimbel collection in all its fascination and informative value. I commend this book to anyone interested in