Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ Robert J. Serling (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Strategic B-17 and B-29 bombers of WW II; Cold War B-52s and Minuteman missiles; moon vehicles, space modules and the jumbo jets that made air travel commonplace--these are some of the aircraft highlighted in this revealing profile of Washington State's Boeing company by aviation writer Serling ( The President's Plane Is Missing ). Of even greater interest are the personalities--the executives, engineers, designers, skilled workers, union leaders, financiers, government regulators, and airline figures like Lindbergh, Trippe and Rickenbacker--who have played roles in the production of today's airliner, with its 4.5 million parts. Two futuristic items in this gripping industrial epic stand out: Boeing's early planning for flights to Mars in the next century and current computerized construction-planning programs, which may avert the kind of aircraft flaws that are currently discovered only in fatal accidents. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is a detailed look at Boeing's bumpy history from the moment in 1910 when William Edward Boeing first saw an airplane and thought he could build a better product to the megasuccessful aerospace company of today. The story, told by the people who have worked at Boeing, recounts the company's successes and its failures (notably, attempts to diversify into such things as furniture, boats, windmills, potatoes, and milk). Boeing's involvement with the space program is interestingly detailed, as is the crash of 1969-71 when the payroll was trimmed from 101,000 workers to 38,000. The company later rebounded to a current annual $6.5 billion profit. This readable and well-documented history is recommended for technology collections. For a more standard company history of Boeing, see Eugene E. Bauer's Boeing in Peace and War , LJ 2/1/91.--Ed.
- William A. McIntyre, New Hampshire Technical. Coll. Lib., Nashua
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (July 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031205890X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312058906
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #399,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More than just Boeing in this book, April 16, 2000

By	David Martin (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This is a great read for anyone involved in any way with aviation; from the pilots to feds, to managers and engineers. The Boeing Company's history is covered in a way that gives a broad view of nearly the entire history of Aviation.

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good history of the Boeing Company, January 8, 2009

By	Daniel Carey (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Serling's book is a very good history of the Boeing company, one of the better ones I have read. It is quite detailed. The book covers Boeing from its beginnings to 1991. It does a very good job of covering all the company's activities, from building bombers to commercial jets to missiles and spacecraft. He also discusses activities at Wichita and Philadelphia. Serling also does a very good job of placing the importance of these accomplishments in their context in terms of what they meant to the company.
Serling uses plenty of first person accounts, ranging from executives, managers, engineers, accountants, machinists and test pilots. However, it is weighed more in favor of those who were managers and engineers. There is relatively little about the company's labor history or strikes as compared to other books about the company. A bibliography would have been very welcome. He does list in the introduction those who contributed, but a comprehensive list of his sources would have been helpful.
I recommend this book to all who want to know about the story of the Boeing company.