Harold Evans: Trippe the Light Fantastic

The author of They Made America argues that Juan Trippe gets a bum rap in the film "The Aviator". Trippe, Evans says, was one of the heroes of aviation history.

Everyone who sees the Oscar runaway nominee "The Aviator" will come away with a dark impression of the man Howard Hughes sees as his enemy--a plump Alec Baldwin playing Juan Trippe as the suavely conspiratorial head of Pan Am. The film deserves its acclaim because it captures the romantic and visionary spirit of risk-takers like Hughes who propelled America to new heights--but the image of Trippe as the bad guy has to be retrieved before it congeals in the popular imagination...

The article appeared on OpinionJournal.com, Saturday, February 26, 2005, under the "Extra" heading.

They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators, by Harold Evans, 496pp, Little Brown & Company, September 2004, hardcover ISBN 0316277665, has a list price of $40. As of post time barnesandnoble.com was selling it new for $28.00 ($26.60 member price). The Alibris new price for the hardcover is $28.01. It is also available on audio CD and audio cassette.