This book is a study of all aspects of air defense from its beginnings during the French Revolution when artillery gunners tried to hit primitive balloons with their cannons to the use of Patriot missiles in the Gulf War to shoot down tactical ballistic missiles. Crabtree's history focuses on the development of tactics and technology from the Franco-Prussian War to the present. The strategic air defense of World War I and World War II are featured, as are the development of surface-to-air missiles by Germany in World War II and by the United States and the USSR in Vietnam and the Middle East.