"From author Paul Hoffman comes Wings of Madness, the engaging true story of Alberto Santos-Dumont's extraordinary life and the thrilling days of early flight.". "Hoffman's sweeping account begins in 1873 with Santos-Dumont's childhood on his parents' vast and remote coffee plantation in Brazil. Quiet and small (as an adult he would reach the height of 5'4"), Santos-Dumont immersed himself in his father's books, especially the fantastic stories by Verne and historical accounts of the first balloon flights.". "By the turn of the century, Santos-Dumont had moved to Paris. Soon, the dashing and impeccably dressed aeronaut was barhopping around the city in a one-man dirigible he invented, circling above crowds and crashing into rooftops. Eventually, he would join the world-wide competition to build the first true airplane. Once he succeeded, the press hailed him as the man who had conquered the air. (Because the Wright brothers worked in near secrecy, word of their first flights had not widely reached Europe when Santos-Dumon took to the skies.) His picture appeared on cigar boxes and dinner plates and he dined regularly with the Cartiers, the Rothschilds, and the Roosevelts, hosting "aerial dinners" in which his guests ate at an elevated table so they could imagine how it felt to be above the world.". "But all would change after Santos-Dumont witnessed the destructive capacity of flying machines in World War I."--BOOK JACKET.