
Empires of the Sky
Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
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Narrated by:
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Jason Culp
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By:
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Alexander Rose
About this listen
The Golden Age of Aviation is brought to life in this story of the giant Zeppelin airships that once roamed the sky—a story that ended with the fiery destruction of the Hindenburg.
“Genius . . . a definitive tale of an incredible time when mere mortals learned to fly.”—Keith O’Brien, The New York Times
At the dawn of the twentieth century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements.
And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way. In the glittery 1920s, the count’s brilliant protégé, Hugo Eckener, achieved undreamed-of feats of daring and skill, including the extraordinary Round-the-World voyage of the Graf Zeppelin. At a time when America’s airplanes—rickety deathtraps held together by glue, screws, and luck—could barely make it from New York to Washington, D.C., Eckener’s airships serenely traversed oceans without a single crash, fatality, or injury. What Charles Lindbergh almost died doing—crossing the Atlantic in 1927—Eckener had effortlessly accomplished three years before the Spirit of St. Louis even took off.
Even as the Nazis sought to exploit Zeppelins for their own nefarious purposes, Eckener built his masterwork, the behemoth Hindenburg—a marvel of design and engineering. Determined to forge an airline empire under the new flagship, Eckener met his match in Juan Trippe, the ruthlessly ambitious king of Pan American Airways, who believed his fleet of next-generation planes would vanquish Eckener’s coming airship armada.
It was a fight only one man—and one technology—could win. Countering each other’s moves on the global chessboard, each seeking to wrest the advantage from his rival, the struggle for mastery of the air was a clash not only of technologies but of business, diplomacy, politics, personalities, and the two men’s vastly different dreams of the future.
Empires of the Sky is the sweeping, untold tale of the duel that transfixed the world and helped create our modern age.
©2020 Alexander Rose (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[An] exhilarating history of the dawn of modern air travel.”—Publishers Weekly
“To say that [Alexander] Rose’s new book, Empires of the Sky, is about the Hindenburg is to diminish the genius of the narrative Rose has crafted here.”—Keith O’Brien, The New York Times
“An obsessive, decades-long struggle between two equally matched people is always fascinating, and especially when the prize they are fighting for is nothing less than the future of flight. We take the airplane’s defeat of the Zeppelin for granted, but in the Roaring Twenties and Dark Thirties it was anything but, and now, in a world aiming for carbon neutrality, we might even regret who won. Alex Rose is a historian with a scintillating prose style and an eye for the insightful, and often amusing, detail. Whereas dirigibles were heavy, ponderous, and full of gas, this book is the precise opposite.”—Andrew Roberts, author of Leadership in War
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Andromeda Klein has a few problems of her own. Her hair is kind of horrible. Her partner-in-occultism, Daisy, is dead. Her secret, estranged, much older and forbidden boyfriend-in-theory, has gone AWOL. And her mother has learned how to text. In short, things couldn't get much worse. Until they do. Daisy seems to be attempting to make contact from beyond, books are starting to disappear from the library, and then, strangely and suddenly, Andromeda's tarot readings are beginning to predict events with bizarrely literal accuracy.
By: Frank Portman
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Skygods
- The Fall of Pan Am
- By: Robert Gandt
- Narrated by: Thomas Block
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Originally published by Wm. Morrow, in 1995, Skygods is the saga of America's most glamorous airline - from its meteoric ascent to its plunge to extinction. Pan Am blazed the way across the world's oceans with its magnificent Clipper ships, launched the first international jet service, was the first to fly the behemoth 747, was the lead customer for America's SST and the Concorde, and was even taking reservations for the first commercial flights to the moon.
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An Absorbing Slice of Social History
- By S. Perry on 06-01-14
By: Robert Gandt
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Second Best
- By: Noelle Adams
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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We meet every other Wednesday night in a downtown hotel. No dates. No commitments. No hearts or flowers. Just his body and mine. Maybe I’m his second best. He’s definitely mine. But second best has never felt so good.
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Dreamy.
- By D. B. Smith on 06-04-18
By: Noelle Adams
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Hating Alison Ashley
- By: Robin Klein
- Narrated by: Felicity Price
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Alison Ashley is sheer perfection in every department. She has everything: intelligence, good looks, a wealthy family and perfect manners and Erica hates her for it! Erica plans to topple Alison at the school play performed annually by the sixth grade. However, everything does not go quite as planned....
By: Robin Klein
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The Scarlet Letter
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Scarlet Letter is one of the great classics of American literature. Set in the harsh Puritan environment of 17th-century Boston, it describes the plight of Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman who stands alone against society. Having given birth to a child after an illicit affair, she refuses to name the father and is forced to wear the letter "A", for Adulteress, embroidered on her dress.
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Masterful storytelling with excellent narration
- By JAS on 10-13-18
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A Hunger of Thorns
- By: Lili Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Katy Sobey
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic—and her best friend. These days, magic is toothless, reduced to glamour patches and psychic energy drinks found in supermarkets and shopping malls. Odette has always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she’s missing, and everyone says she’s dead. Everyone except Maude.
By: Lili Wilkinson
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The Savage Kind
- By: John Copenhaver
- Narrated by: Sarah Naughton, Robin Miles, Jeanette Illidge
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Philippa Watson, a good-natured yet troubled 17-year-old, has just moved to Washington, DC. She’s lonely until she meets Judy Peabody, a brilliant and tempestuous classmate. The girls become unlikely friends and fashion themselves as intellectuals, drawing the notice of Christine Martins, their dazzling English teacher, who enthralls them with her passion for literature and her love of noirish detective fiction. When Philippa returns a novel Miss Martins has lent her, she interrupts a man grappling with her in the shadows.
By: John Copenhaver
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From Air
- Wildfire
- By: Jewel E. Ann
- Narrated by: Ada Sinclair, Nelson Hobbs
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jamie Andrews moves in with a house full of firefighters, things start heating up fast. Battling the wilderness of rural Montana, these guys are always charging into danger—for a living, for duty, for the rush—and since Jamie is a psychiatric nurse, they fascinate her analytic mind. She can’t help but fixate on Calvin, a grumpy, enigmatic smoke jumper ten years her senior. She makes playfully tormenting him her pet project, trying to get him to open up. It turns out he gives as good as he gets.
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Cool Close Proximity Romance
- By Latisha on 03-08-25
By: Jewel E. Ann
What listeners say about Empires of the Sky
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- Houston1
- 10-26-20
Outstanding.
Outstanding- technical and historical review. Particular liked the inclusion and conflict between the aeronaughts of Graf Zepplin and the ultimate competition and replacement by the clipper ships and Juan’s Trippe TWA; the hero Lindbergh and Sikorsky. Once again the wrong side won WW2 and we would have advanced to supersonic transports as desired by Uncle A; Juan Tripp and other visionaries.
The narrator was excellent as well.
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2 people found this helpful
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- The Occasional Aristocrat
- 03-17-22
Great narration uneven storytelling
I greatly enjoyed the book, however I felt that the Juan trippe content was almost bolted on as an afterthought. The content is definitely 3-4 zeppelin over trippe. I feel the author could have benefitted by either increasing the portion on trippe or having two books entirely with one each dedicated to zeppelin and trippe.
Regardless great book and a great listen
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- Anonymous User
- 04-04-24
Took long time, but totally worth it
This is a detailed, but easy to listen history of early aviation. Really takes you to the short time in history when giant zeppelins ruled the skies.
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- Smokin Paul
- 05-16-24
Good overview with lots of details.
Very good overview of the history of airships, filled a few gaps. Loved all the details.
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- A. W. Einstein Jr.
- 02-22-21
Fascinating
I had no idea that the concept of rigid air ships had been around so long. Never knew that era ships and airplanes we’re battling for long distance air service until 1937. If you’re interested in things that fly or Hover above the earth this is a story you should read.
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- Customer
- 08-31-23
Interest in the Zeppelin? Look no further
Excellent listen, very engaging. Informative without getting lost in the weeds of technical data. Thorough in its presentation of auxiliary details that tell the rise and fall of the airship.
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- singingcowboy
- 09-16-23
History Comes Alive!
This is an excellent story, excellently performed. The author creatively and colorfully reveals the personalities of the movers and shakers in this gripping account of the evolution of passenger flight. The narration is crisp and dynamic. The German accent is not well rendered and could have been completely omitted without diminishing the performance. But overall this is an excellent product well worth the listen.
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- frank gravante
- 03-01-24
So good I bought the hard copy too
This book has so much information in it that I bought the hard copy to use as a reference book!
Amazing work of history, well written narrative, well produced audio. Superb.
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- adam
- 08-10-20
Title is a bit of a misnomer
A comprehensive story of the Zeppelin company and it’s production of airships. Detailed almost to a fault. I would say that about 4/5ths of the story centers on the Zeppelin Company and Hugo Ekenor. The book’s title gives the impression that the story will revolve around the “battle” between Ekenor and Juan Tripp of Pan Am. This is given only limited space and seems to be an afterthought when the book was written. Overall a worthwhile listen but could have been better.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-25-21
A fully engaging well researched and written history of commercial flight
I consider myself relatively knowledgeable of aviation’s history. But this novel by Mr. Rose filled in a lot of gaps and provided a realism of the times, equipment, people and politics. It also demonstrated what people with vision and determination can achieve.
The narration by Mr. Culp kept this long novel enjoyable and engaging.
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