num_pages: 544
description: A fast-paced dynamic account of the race to cross the Atlantic and the larger-than-life personalities of the aviators who captured the world's attentionIn 1919 a prize of $25000 was offered to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic in either direction between France and America. Although it was one of the most coveted prizes in the world it sat unclaimed (not without efforts) for eight long years until the spring of 1927. It was then during five incredibly tense weeks that one of those magical windows in history opened when there occurred a nexus of technology innovation character and spirit that led so many contenders (from different parts of the world) to all suddenly be on the cusp of the exact same achievement at the exact same time. Atlantic Fever is about the race; it is a milestone in American history whose story has never been fully told. Richard Byrd Noel Davis Stanton Wooster Clarence Chamberlin Charles Levine Ren Fonck Charles Nungesser and Franois Coliall had equal weight in the race with Charles Lindbergh. Although the story starts in September 1926 with the crash of the first competitor or even further back with the 1919 establishment of the prize its heart is found in a short period those five weeks from April 14 to May 21 1927 when the world held its breath and the aviators met their separate fates in the air.
language: English
title: Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux