From Publishers Weekly
As a former Library of Congress aeronautics editor who worked on the Wright papers, Howard is well qualified to write about the brothers and to redress the rumors, claims and falsifications that followed their successful flights. He establishes early on that the Wrights were not mere tinkerers who owned a Dayton bicycle shop but that they had sufficient background in mathematics and physics to be aware of the theory as well as the practice of flight. Much of the book is devoted to the brothers' efforts to market their invention, which proceeded slowly because they were not businessmen, and the difficulties they had with those who asserted that they, not the Wrights, were the first to fly. Throughout the biography there runs the thread of two loving brothers and the warm family life that helped to sustain them in their struggles. Commendably, Howard describes the technical features of their work in a fashion quite comprehensible to lay readers. A fine job. Photos not seen by PW. History Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In 1903 at Kitty Hawk, a man-carrying machine flew under its own power without losing speed or altitude. Among this book's many merits is making clear just what the Wright brothers really achieved before, during, and after that epic flight. Howard seems well qualified for the task. After Air Force service in World War II he joined the Library of Congress team that edited The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (1953). His lively account is admirably well documented and more judiciously balanced than most other writings about the men who invented the airplane. For most libraries. B.C. Hacker, General Science Dept., Oregon State Univ. , Corvallis
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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