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The Wright Brothers
The #1 New York Times bestseller from David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize--the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly--Wilbur and Orville Wright. On a winter day in 1903
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Community Reviews
The book provides a handful of interesting anecdotes that provide interesting historical context and deepen one's appreciation for the creative and physical work that can be involved in invention. In particular:
+ The Wright Brothers essentially camped out doors on a remote island while doing most of their design, building and testing of their plane
+ The advent of the modern bicycle not only occurred during the Wright Brother's lifetime, but was still a novel product that they built and sold at the time their plane began to work
+ The design of the airplane, and in particular the mechanisms by which it achieved equilibrium in the air, were based on detailed study of birds flight. Rival inventors that first tried to solve mechanical problems all failed.
These interesting vignettes provide historical depth and useful lessons. However, if the book suffers, it is from the simple fact that the lives of great inventors / technologists are frequently uninteresting and centered around a fairly sustained pursuit of technical advance. The author struggles to hang narrative breaks onto what was essentially a ceaseless pursuit of scientific advance. You end up with the impression that it was probably much more interesting to be the Wright Brothers, struggling with all manner of complex problems, than to read about them doing so.
+ The Wright Brothers essentially camped out doors on a remote island while doing most of their design, building and testing of their plane
+ The advent of the modern bicycle not only occurred during the Wright Brother's lifetime, but was still a novel product that they built and sold at the time their plane began to work
+ The design of the airplane, and in particular the mechanisms by which it achieved equilibrium in the air, were based on detailed study of birds flight. Rival inventors that first tried to solve mechanical problems all failed.
These interesting vignettes provide historical depth and useful lessons. However, if the book suffers, it is from the simple fact that the lives of great inventors / technologists are frequently uninteresting and centered around a fairly sustained pursuit of technical advance. The author struggles to hang narrative breaks onto what was essentially a ceaseless pursuit of scientific advance. You end up with the impression that it was probably much more interesting to be the Wright Brothers, struggling with all manner of complex problems, than to read about them doing so.
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