This detailed history examines the development of the airship, from the earliest, and often disastrous, attempts at making a dirigible balloon, up to the present. Covering this development in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the US and the Soviet Union, John Richards delves into every aspect of the airship. The book ranges from the first fully controlled powered flight and the flight around the Eiffel Tower, the failed attempts to cross the Atlantic and the first London-Paris flight, to the many uses of the airship in times of war, including anti-submarine campaigns, convoy escorts and patrol. Between the wars Arctic expeditions were undertaken and events included a successful Atlantic crossing, Graf Zeppelin's twenty-one-day round-the-world flight, a service to South America and the loss of the Hindenburg. The Second World War and a discussion of the airships' functions in the more modern world round off a fascinating and definitive guide to this intriguing craft.