Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill - A History Book

A colorful history of purposeful plummeting, from our ancestors in the trees to bungee-jumping. Anyone who has gone over the crest of a roller coaster should wonder why that terror is so much fun. Garrett Soden shows how the act of taking a fall has evolved from a symbol of wickedness in the ancient imagination to the inspiration behind much of today's recreation. Beginning with the tree-climbing lessons of our earliest ancestors, he takes us on a hair-raising tour through the fascinating legacy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century daredevils and madcaps: high-divers who became folk heroes, Niagara Falls tightrope walkers who drew thousands, and parachutists who challenged the "certainty" of suffocation during free fall. Soden draws from these stories the psychological archetype of the gravity rebel, encompassing pioneers in the art from the drunken British carousers who invented bungee-jumping to the California street punks who launched skateboards skyward. In the end we arrive at a fascinating understanding of the mass appeal of today's extreme sports and thrill-seeking technology—from roller coasters to virtual reality. 14 b/w illustrations.Read More