Wings of Madness

In 2023, when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Santos Dumont's birth, Wings of Madness invites us to discover the life and creations of one of the greatest Brazilian inventors of all time.

Alberto Santos Dumont has been immortalized in the Brazilian imagination, honored in poems, songs, statues, busts, paintings, biographies, and commemorations in his memory. His fame and charisma made him, for a time, the most celebrated man in the world. Despite this, Santos Dumont was also a shy and quiet man, a genius tormented by the weight of his creation, which culminated in his tragic end. Wings of Madness reveals the glories and shadows of his story.

Santos Dumont was 18 years old when he arrived in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. The Brazilian, born in Minas Gerais and raised on his family's coffee farms, was passionate about dirigibles and balloons, which he had learned about through Jules Verne's novels, and about the technological advances he encountered in the French city. He developed and built aircraft driven by the dream of one day allowing everyone to own their own plane, as already existed with automobiles, which would bring people closer together and reduce distances. Upon winning a competition to build the first airplane, the French press celebrated Santos Dumont as a "conqueror of the air." World history, however, would eventually consecrate the American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright as pioneers in aviation—even though their goals were far less noble than the Brazilian's idealism.

With his faith in the future of technology, Santos Dumont failed to foresee the destructive power of his machines and witnessed with great dismay the destructive capacity of airplanes during World War I. The Wright brothers' acclaim was another source of dismay. Their psychological disorders and the circumstances of their untimely death are fully revealed in this book.

On the 150th anniversary of Santos Dumont's birth, Editora Record brings back Wings of Madness , the biography of this extraordinary pioneer and a brilliant figure in the history of aviation. With a captivating narrative, award-winning American journalist Paul Hoffman recounts the remarkable life of the Brazilian aviator, who made a decisive contribution to modernity and symbolized the tortured spirit of the 20th century.