A History of Spy Ballooning from 1783 to the Present

Spanning the technological innovations and improvements in balloon technology since its invention in 1783, this book explores the concept of ‘spy ballooning’ throughout multiple conflicts in modern history: the wars following the French revolution, the American Civil War, both World Wars, and the Cold War. The military and intelligence capabilities of balloons have a long and chequered history. From the 1790s, balloons have been used for military reconnaissance. The first bombing run using balloons came in Venice in 1849. Later, balloons were also used for espionage and propaganda. Like their British counterparts who undermined the Central Powers in the First World War, US cold warriors blanketed Eastern Europe with leaflets calling for liberation from communism. Visionaries have frequently recognized the military advantages that balloons can bring. But their cumbersome fragility has also repeatedly led to scepticism, on the part of commanders, as to their benefits. This book is the first to systematically analyse the use of spy balloons for military and intelligence purposes. It demonstrates the versatility and importance, but also the limitations and pitfalls, of this scopic technology, over time and up until the present. The author makes connections between balloon technology during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, touching on more recent events such as the 2023 Chinese spy balloon scare in the USA, and the collapse of Israel’s border defences against Hamas.

Mark Fenemore is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), in the UK.  He has researched in Germany (Bundesarchiv, Landesarchiv, Stasi archives), Britain, the USA and France (Archives Diplomatiques). After teaching at Galway and Limerick, Mark worked in both German and history departments at Liverpool before arriving at MMU in 2005. In 2000, he was awarded an Isobel Thornley Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research.