The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

com.cn or tessinshanghai@yahoo.com , or write to Old China Hand Research Service, 70 Dong Hu Lu, Bldg. 3, Apt. 201, Shanghai 200031. The Passion That Left the Ground: The Remarkable Airplanes of Léon Levavasseur Stephen H. King, Word Association, 2007, $24.95, paperback, 158 pages. Very few people alive remember the golden age of aviation, from approxi- mately 1903 through 1914. And, beyond the small world of early-aviation historians, even fewer persons have ever heard of the Frenchman Léon Levavasseur. Yet he is one of the truly great pioneers in the field of aviation. Not simply a pilot, he was a genius who de- signed and built airplanes—beautiful, graceful, sublime airplanes, some of which were many years ahead of their time. One of his creations, the Antoinette monoplane, is hailed by many as the most beautiful airplane ever built. This well-researched nonfiction work on Levavasseur and his aeronautical creations features 50 pages of ex- quisite photographs. Author Stephen King also includes information about Levavasseur’s ace pilot, the French aviation pioneer Hubert Latham, who flew the mono- plane Antoinette in competitions in Europe and the United States and who died tragically in Africa in 1912. Woven throughout the narrative is important histor- ical background on the French military’s attitude toward aviation from 1910 and leading up to the outbreak of WorldWar I, for instance, and other issues affecting avi- ation in France during that period. A retired FSO, Stephen H. King has been interested in aviation since his youth as an Air Force brat. His French-born wife is a distant cousin of Hubert Latham, and King’s first book, Windkiller (Word Association, 2004), is based on Latham’s fascinating and turbulent life as a world-class pilot. Though written as a novel to showcase Latham’s mercurial and peculiar personality and how it ultimately led him to depression and tragedy, Windkiller is rich in details of this early, groundbreak- ing period in aviation history. Stephen H. King resides in Northern Virginia. ■ 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9