Read Broken Icarus

The flight of fascism. Prometheus, June 15.

The 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago celebrated a mix of propaganda and technology the Wizard of Oz would have welcomed. Hitler’s Graf Zeppelin dominated the sky, though its anti-Nazi captain maneuvered it to hide its gigantic swastikas from the crowds; Mussolini sent 24 military seaplanes to both instill pride in and threaten Italian émigrés; and a “true” American—Tex Settle—was hastily added to a stratospheric balloon ride as a riposte to Stalin, setting off the Space Race. David Hanna’s historical study is lively, exciting, and a cautionary tale for our troubled times.