Eugene B. Block's Above the Civil War: The Story of Thaddeus Lowe, Balloonist, Inventor, Railway Builder is a popular biography of Professor Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, chief aeronaut of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The book represents a nice bit of scholarship for middle readers on what was the centenary of the Civil War's ending at the time of publication, but later volumes have supplanted Block both in content and academic quality. The short page length, compounded by the publisher including the photographic insets in the page count, limits the overall narrative and renders this a quick overview without much depth. ( )