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Airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the twentieth century, were a symbol of the future.

The British airship R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world\\u2019s most advanced engineering \\u2014 it was also the linchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like it, and R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea.

Journalist S.C. Gwynne\\u2019s book, His Majesty\\u2019s Airship, features a cast of remarkable and often tragically flawed characters, including: Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite with whom he had a long affair; and Herbert Scott, a national hero who had made the first double crossing of the Atlantic in any aircraft in 1919 \\u2014 eight years before Lindbergh\\u2019s famous flight \\u2014 but who devolved into drink and ruin. These historical figures \\u2014 and the ship they built, flew, and crashed \\u2014 come together in a grand tale that details the rocky road to commercial aviation.

S.C. Gwynne\\xa0is the author of\\xa0Hymns of the Republic\\xa0and the\\xa0New York Times\\xa0bestsellers\\xa0Rebel Yell\\xa0and\\xa0Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with\\xa0Time\\xa0as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with\\xa0Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife.