Falling Upwards is a vivid group biography and adventure about the extraordinary experience of flying above the earth (or falling into the sky). It tells how men - and women too - first felt as they rose towards the clouds into an utterly new dimension - into a world of science, exploration, warfare, literature, discovery. 'I have known today a magnificent intoxication. I have learnt how it feels to be a bird. I have flown. Yes I have flown. I am still astonished at it, still deeply moved.' Le Figaro, 1908 Dr Charles understood the perils of flight. Following his landmark ascent to 10,000 feet above Les Tuileries in 1783, he observed: 'Never has a man felt so solitary, so sublime - and so utterly terrified.' He never flew again. Not so Richard Holmes. These ineffably romantic floating machines have drifted through his work for many years. And now, in his hands, this recklessly dangerous subject will become a heart-lifting book which tells a cracking international story of drama, adventure and danger - with a serious underlying scientific intent. His subject is flight itself; the aerial dimension explored with such courage by early 18th and 19th century balloonists; the heights of their glory and the fiery, appalling consequences that befell many. In this exhilarating book, we meet the pioneer generation of aviators with their rivalries, reflections and ruminations on weather, altitude, the invention of geography, meteorology, and how ballooning opened up a new, and wholly unexpected vision of the earth. In an instant, the world pondered for the first time weather prediction, observation of the stars from an aerial dimension, military reconnaissance, transportation of heavy cargo and the geographical exploration of remote continents. An arms race in balloon technology began. Those in previous centuries who had dreamed of flight believed this new mode of transport would open up the secrets of heaven. In fact, as Richard Holmes shows, it revealed the secrets of the world beneath.