ONE hundred years ago the planet was a very different place. The United States was emerging as a world economic power, but had yet to realise its full potential.

Europe was at peace, tenuous as it was, while trouble in Russia was a portent of war and revolution to come.

Much of the rest of the world remained as either economic or political colonies of the dominant powers.

Millions of Europe and Asia's poor continued to travel days and weeks by steamship to seek a new life in the United States.

Once there, steam-driven trains were the primary means of long-distance overland transport for immigrant and citizen alike. The vast rail network linked most communities and enabled those who could afford it to ride across the country in less than a week.

Nevertheless, once settled, most Americans stayed at home and few ever travelled more than 25 miles from their place of birth. And so it was across the rest of the developed world.

Transportation was taking the first tenuous steps that would soon change the world forever. With the invention of the internal combustion engine, in the late 19th century, new possibilities of motive force became available. By 1903 the automobile was set to challenge the horse.

Transportation would soon change even more dramatically because of a new invention -- the aeroplane. Within the century that followed, humankind took to the air, led by the pioneering example of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

First in frail craft, but soon in sturdy and reliable machines, aviators shattered long-standing barriers of time and distance.

By mid-century, air travel was common, and by the late 1950s it had replaced the train and steamship as the preferred mode of transport. By the last quarter of the 20th century, with large, efficient jet-powered aircraft, air travel was commonplace arid affordable to all.

Flying has become second nature to hundreds of millions of people and is so deeply intertwined into the fabric of society that it is impossible to imagine a world without it.

The aeroplane also rapidly developed as a weapon of war. Used widely during the First World War, where the techniques of air power were initially developed, military aircraft became an integral part of warfare by the Second World War.

The advent of jet power and sophisticated electronics perfected during and after the Cold War, has now turned the aircraft into perhaps the most feared weapon over the 21st century battlefield.

Today, 100 years after the Wright brothers first took to the air in the first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air machine, the political, social, and economic challenges are different; yet, in many respects, remarkably similar.

Aviation and space flight are critical tools for the improvement of the human condition and powerful instruments of positive change. This book by R E Grant is the story of that most remarkable achievement of the 20th century -- flight.

Using superlative historical images and extraordinary new photography to illustrate an excellent text, the book is a fitting tribute to the courage and efforts of the pioneering individuals and organisations that inspired the first 100 years of aviation.

With more than 1500 illustrations, the most dramatic moments of flying history are brought to life --from the earliest pioneers and their attempts to fly, to the most exciting breakthroughs in contemporary technology.

As well as fascinating and detailed profiles of more than 300 of the world's greatest planes, the book includes profiles of key personalities and the early pioneers, and the latest information on the future of flight -- from anti-terrorist strategies, to light aircraft, pilot-less planes and space vacations.

R E Grant is a history writer who has published more than 20 books on aspects of social life and military conflict in the 20th Century.

His works include a biography of Winston Churchill, a history of the British secret service and a study of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Published by Dorling Kindersley at £30