Review by Booklist Review
The most popular museum in the U.S. has a pedigree in flight extending back to the Civil War's observation balloons, a history this volume celebrates. Written by staffers of the National Air and Space Museum, it naturally covers bureaucratic evolution and the institution's installations for collecting, storing, restoring, and displaying its artifacts. Saluting various museum personnel such as former curator Paul Garber, who obtained such icons as the Spirit of St. Louis, and astronaut Michael Collins, who administered construction of the present museum building in Washington, D.C., the writers also confront problems the institution has experienced. Readers can return to the controversy the museum provoked by its 1995 display of the Enola Gay, and to a contretemps that so outraged Orville Wright that he withheld the history-making 1903 airplane from the museum (which did eventually acquire it). Informative as this work's text is, visuals are its preeminent value: with about 700 color and black-and-white photographs, it will absorb aviation browsers and could well incite pilgrimages to the museum. What more could a collection developer ask for?--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
