muhly22's review against another edition
3.0
As a lawyer, one thing I've seen a number of times (in a short career so far) is people becoming too emotionally invested in cases that are primarily or solely economic. When a good deal is on the table, they won't take it out of some desire to "prove" the other party is the bad guy. That's the primary thing that I took away from this book: Wilbur and Orville Wright were consumed by their emotional need to prove that Glenn Curtiss had stolen from them.
In the Epilogue, Goldstone pointed out that the Wright-Curtiss battle persists to this day, through proxies: people who support one faction or the other. Goldstone takes great pains to point out the ways in which the planes made by Curtiss differ from the Wright Flyers, leaving no doubt as to his view in that debate.
Not that he's on the wrong side. Curtiss continued to innovate throughout his life; the Wrights decided to halt innovating and pursue legal actions. I'm a lawyer, so trust me on this: lawsuits are draining. They drag on, they last a long time, and patent cases seem to be worse than other kinds of lawsuit. Wilbur (and Orville, though less so) was an incredible innovator. What he could have accomplished if he hadn't decided to shut the process down in favor of draining lawsuits boggles the mind, though the list of Curtiss's accomplishments might provide a guideline.
Goldstone tried to do too much with this book; it was unfocused. Sometimes he'd discuss innovations that were being made in aviation; sometimes he'd discuss the daring feats of various aviators; sometimes he'd discuss legal angles; sometimes he'd discuss public relations battles. Nor did Goldstone restrict himself to the Wright-Curtiss battle; he spent a lot of pages on foreign aviators that were peripheral to the story that was supposed to be the central story.
In the Epilogue, Goldstone pointed out that the Wright-Curtiss battle persists to this day, through proxies: people who support one faction or the other. Goldstone takes great pains to point out the ways in which the planes made by Curtiss differ from the Wright Flyers, leaving no doubt as to his view in that debate.
Not that he's on the wrong side. Curtiss continued to innovate throughout his life; the Wrights decided to halt innovating and pursue legal actions. I'm a lawyer, so trust me on this: lawsuits are draining. They drag on, they last a long time, and patent cases seem to be worse than other kinds of lawsuit. Wilbur (and Orville, though less so) was an incredible innovator. What he could have accomplished if he hadn't decided to shut the process down in favor of draining lawsuits boggles the mind, though the list of Curtiss's accomplishments might provide a guideline.
Goldstone tried to do too much with this book; it was unfocused. Sometimes he'd discuss innovations that were being made in aviation; sometimes he'd discuss the daring feats of various aviators; sometimes he'd discuss legal angles; sometimes he'd discuss public relations battles. Nor did Goldstone restrict himself to the Wright-Curtiss battle; he spent a lot of pages on foreign aviators that were peripheral to the story that was supposed to be the central story.
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
4.0
Pretty decent book. I'd never read a bio of Wilbur and Orville before, and knew even less about Curtiss, other than knowing that by the start of WWI, for nascent military air fleets, he, not the Wright(s), were the go-to folks.
That one "s" is in parentheses because Wilbur died in 1912 and Orville, according to Goldstone, didn't have the same energy for patent battles with Curtiss, although he and sister Katherine both blamed alleged patent infringement by Curtiss for causing Wilbur's death.
Ahh, let's start there. SCOTUS, Goldstone says, created something called "pioneer patents" in the late 1890s when it gave very broad patent approval to the Westinghouse air brake. To a degree, this allowed patents of ideas (something which has now been removed).
The Wrights patented their wing warping for lateral control of planes, but, based on the Westinghouse ruling, claimed this covered ALL methods of lateral control, including the first versions of the ailerons that are used for that on all planes today.
After about 1907, Wilbur spent almost all his time on US and European legal and business issues, and little on design, which allowed Curtiss, a motor mechanic first and foremost, to start passing the Wrights with the ailerons. Meanwhile, the French were working on rotary motors and monoplanes. Curtiss eventually created the first flying boat.
Read more about how both Wrights were poor businessmen, Wilbur was a monomaniac on patent-related issues, and Orville was always second dog on the relationship between the brothers, as well as the first group of stuntman fliers.
A lack of an additional 40-50 pages of detail were the one major thing, along with a few bits of "flow," that kept this from a fifth star.
That one "s" is in parentheses because Wilbur died in 1912 and Orville, according to Goldstone, didn't have the same energy for patent battles with Curtiss, although he and sister Katherine both blamed alleged patent infringement by Curtiss for causing Wilbur's death.
Ahh, let's start there. SCOTUS, Goldstone says, created something called "pioneer patents" in the late 1890s when it gave very broad patent approval to the Westinghouse air brake. To a degree, this allowed patents of ideas (something which has now been removed).
The Wrights patented their wing warping for lateral control of planes, but, based on the Westinghouse ruling, claimed this covered ALL methods of lateral control, including the first versions of the ailerons that are used for that on all planes today.
After about 1907, Wilbur spent almost all his time on US and European legal and business issues, and little on design, which allowed Curtiss, a motor mechanic first and foremost, to start passing the Wrights with the ailerons. Meanwhile, the French were working on rotary motors and monoplanes. Curtiss eventually created the first flying boat.
Read more about how both Wrights were poor businessmen, Wilbur was a monomaniac on patent-related issues, and Orville was always second dog on the relationship between the brothers, as well as the first group of stuntman fliers.
A lack of an additional 40-50 pages of detail were the one major thing, along with a few bits of "flow," that kept this from a fifth star.
balzat28's review against another edition
3.0
For all the adulation heaped on Orville and Wilbur Wright--the two Midwestern bike-shop owners who flew the first working airplane more than a century ago--history forgets that, beyond their scientific and automotive skills, not to mention a fearless desire to succeed, the two men were also stubborn, selfish assholes. While other aviators of the day were determined to see manned flight realized for the sake of progress--of moving humanity towards horizons both literal and figurative--the Wrights balked at such altruistic ideals and, in patenting aspects of their design, made it almost impossible for others to perfect motorized flight and move the technology forward. In fact, once their achievements at Kitty Hawk were publicized and their patent was certified, their story became one of litigation, greed, obsession, and the failed promise of two otherwise indispensable minds. It's this history--of the Wright's battle for supremacy, especially against fellow inventor and aviator Glenn Curtiss--that dominates most of Birdmen, Lawrence Goldstone's account of how two of the most idolized Americans did more than anyone else to undermine not only worldwide progress but also their own legacies.
Despite their humble beginnings, Orville and Wilbur Wright did not want for wealth. Their Ohio bike shop was not only a prescient idea--in the era before airplanes and the Model T, the bike was serious transportation--but also quite successful, and after their triumph at Kitty Hawk, they could have easily and comfortably lived off the fortune and prestige that came with fame. Public appearances and demonstrations alone would have sufficed, and eventually they could have competed against others for monetary prizes--which, as Goldstone shows in exhausting detail, were not just sizable but plentiful. (Goldstone also shows that the Wright brothers were skilled pilots and could easily have bested their competition.) Had they never manufactured a single plane of their own--had they simply drawn up their designs and passed them around to other aviators and businessmen--they could have lived out the remainder of their days without concern, forever revered by a world that would have forever been in debt to them.
Instead, the Wrights enlisted an attorney who understood patent laws, and in just three years they had built a virtual monopoly on one lone patent, which would require anyone who designed, purchased, or flew airplanes to pay their company a hefty sum, if not become part of their monolith altogether.* It was a ruthless decision on their part, one that was written in such a way as to give the appearance of small copyright claims--on flaps, rudders, and so on, all of them seemingly insignificant parts of the overall design--that, in total, handed over complete control of the entire industry to both men. (After all, without those small bits and pieces, a plane would have been useless.) Unfortunately for the Wrights--but fortunately for everyone else--the long wait allowed others to design, build, and fly their own planes, often improving on the Wrights' own work. By the time the patent--number 821993--became official, their design was already slipping into obsolescence. The Wrights could easily have returned to their workshops--to the beaches of Kitty Hawk, even--and made their own changes, drawing on their skills and insights before their competition could do the same; had they done so, they would have remained important players in the "battle to control the skies." It would have been a beneficial decision for everyone, not just the brothers and their fellow enthusiasts, but once again Orville and Wilbur Wright chose to march in the opposite direction. For the rest of their lives--Orville would die in 1912 at the age of 45, a tragedy Wilbur attributed almost solely to the constant pressures of litigation, and Wilbur himself would pass away a bitter recluse in 1948, at the age of 76--they would haunt court-rooms, make spurious demands for payment, elicit antagonism from the general public without apology or concern for their business' public relations, and travel across Europe fighting foreign manufacturers and governments. And with one small exception--a simple design that Orville did not nurture beyond its conception--neither brother would ever invent again.
More than a century later, we live in an age of streamlined, industrialized innovation, when new ideas do not spring from North Carolina beaches or the workshops of bike repairmen, from suburban garages or the kitchen laboratories of curious teenagers or housewives, but from well-funded and organized movements. These are often funded by millionaires and billionaires, each claiming to be in search of revolutionary ideas to make the world "a better place" and fix the seemingly unfixable, but more often than not their endeavors are tinged with the stink of profit--of capitalism masked as innovation. And while this is far from detrimental--after all, money accelerates any process, and those who actualize the next Big Idea deserve to be justly rewarded--it removes human independence and ingenuity from the procedure, both of which are vital to progress. The Wright brothers were able to create and refine their designs because they had funding, yes, but that assurance allowed them to work on an idea that already existed and to do so independent of any outside influence. Had they not been two bike-shop owners with an idea and had, instead, been two employees in windowless cubicles or on the floor of a multi-acre plant, there can be no guarantee of success. Would they have survived above the noises of the bureaucracy? Would their designs have passed quality control, or would they have faced instant rejections for its flaws? (Their original designs had many.) Would they have even been given credit, or would it have been the "invention" of their superiors and CEO, in much the same way Edison claimed the designs of others as his own?
Right now, there are thousands--possibly even millions--of innovators pushing to realize a dream of their own, most of them much more attuned to their responsibility than the Wrights were. The true questions is, are we doing enough for them--giving them the space, the funding, and the freedom to pioneer--or are attempts at fostering their ideas done selfishly and only for ourselves? Because, as the story of the Wright brothers makes clear, those who create for the sake of the world and those who create for the sake of themselves are often hard to distinguish, and it may just be true that they are--at one point in time--one in the same, liable to tip in either direction, dependent on little more than the winds of the day.
*The Wrights were also assisted in this process by the era's patent laws, which were opaque and favored business over innovation, and a judge who was unapologetically biased towards the two brothers.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
Despite their humble beginnings, Orville and Wilbur Wright did not want for wealth. Their Ohio bike shop was not only a prescient idea--in the era before airplanes and the Model T, the bike was serious transportation--but also quite successful, and after their triumph at Kitty Hawk, they could have easily and comfortably lived off the fortune and prestige that came with fame. Public appearances and demonstrations alone would have sufficed, and eventually they could have competed against others for monetary prizes--which, as Goldstone shows in exhausting detail, were not just sizable but plentiful. (Goldstone also shows that the Wright brothers were skilled pilots and could easily have bested their competition.) Had they never manufactured a single plane of their own--had they simply drawn up their designs and passed them around to other aviators and businessmen--they could have lived out the remainder of their days without concern, forever revered by a world that would have forever been in debt to them.
Instead, the Wrights enlisted an attorney who understood patent laws, and in just three years they had built a virtual monopoly on one lone patent, which would require anyone who designed, purchased, or flew airplanes to pay their company a hefty sum, if not become part of their monolith altogether.* It was a ruthless decision on their part, one that was written in such a way as to give the appearance of small copyright claims--on flaps, rudders, and so on, all of them seemingly insignificant parts of the overall design--that, in total, handed over complete control of the entire industry to both men. (After all, without those small bits and pieces, a plane would have been useless.) Unfortunately for the Wrights--but fortunately for everyone else--the long wait allowed others to design, build, and fly their own planes, often improving on the Wrights' own work. By the time the patent--number 821993--became official, their design was already slipping into obsolescence. The Wrights could easily have returned to their workshops--to the beaches of Kitty Hawk, even--and made their own changes, drawing on their skills and insights before their competition could do the same; had they done so, they would have remained important players in the "battle to control the skies." It would have been a beneficial decision for everyone, not just the brothers and their fellow enthusiasts, but once again Orville and Wilbur Wright chose to march in the opposite direction. For the rest of their lives--Orville would die in 1912 at the age of 45, a tragedy Wilbur attributed almost solely to the constant pressures of litigation, and Wilbur himself would pass away a bitter recluse in 1948, at the age of 76--they would haunt court-rooms, make spurious demands for payment, elicit antagonism from the general public without apology or concern for their business' public relations, and travel across Europe fighting foreign manufacturers and governments. And with one small exception--a simple design that Orville did not nurture beyond its conception--neither brother would ever invent again.
More than a century later, we live in an age of streamlined, industrialized innovation, when new ideas do not spring from North Carolina beaches or the workshops of bike repairmen, from suburban garages or the kitchen laboratories of curious teenagers or housewives, but from well-funded and organized movements. These are often funded by millionaires and billionaires, each claiming to be in search of revolutionary ideas to make the world "a better place" and fix the seemingly unfixable, but more often than not their endeavors are tinged with the stink of profit--of capitalism masked as innovation. And while this is far from detrimental--after all, money accelerates any process, and those who actualize the next Big Idea deserve to be justly rewarded--it removes human independence and ingenuity from the procedure, both of which are vital to progress. The Wright brothers were able to create and refine their designs because they had funding, yes, but that assurance allowed them to work on an idea that already existed and to do so independent of any outside influence. Had they not been two bike-shop owners with an idea and had, instead, been two employees in windowless cubicles or on the floor of a multi-acre plant, there can be no guarantee of success. Would they have survived above the noises of the bureaucracy? Would their designs have passed quality control, or would they have faced instant rejections for its flaws? (Their original designs had many.) Would they have even been given credit, or would it have been the "invention" of their superiors and CEO, in much the same way Edison claimed the designs of others as his own?
Right now, there are thousands--possibly even millions--of innovators pushing to realize a dream of their own, most of them much more attuned to their responsibility than the Wrights were. The true questions is, are we doing enough for them--giving them the space, the funding, and the freedom to pioneer--or are attempts at fostering their ideas done selfishly and only for ourselves? Because, as the story of the Wright brothers makes clear, those who create for the sake of the world and those who create for the sake of themselves are often hard to distinguish, and it may just be true that they are--at one point in time--one in the same, liable to tip in either direction, dependent on little more than the winds of the day.
*The Wrights were also assisted in this process by the era's patent laws, which were opaque and favored business over innovation, and a judge who was unapologetically biased towards the two brothers.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
intoxicating_reads's review against another edition
4.0
Really good book. There was so much about the beginning of flight that I never heard of before. It seems we learn in school about the Wright brothers and there it stops. At times , when discussing the process of flying, it got a little too technical for me but overall very well written and inclusive. Would have liked a section of "who's who" in front or back of the book as there were so many people involved it would be nice to have that to refer to as you read through the book.
yoongoongi's review against another edition
3.0
I won a free copy of this book on Goodreads through First Reads.
I normally steer clear of non fiction books. To me, reading those is more of a chore. I tend to learn towards fiction because I want to escape this world and have a little fun.
All that being said. This book wasn't bad. It'd probably be better geared towards a history buff or anyone who's interested in flight. I walked away from this book having learned a few things, which is always a plus. The book was well written.
I normally steer clear of non fiction books. To me, reading those is more of a chore. I tend to learn towards fiction because I want to escape this world and have a little fun.
All that being said. This book wasn't bad. It'd probably be better geared towards a history buff or anyone who's interested in flight. I walked away from this book having learned a few things, which is always a plus. The book was well written.
ambern's review against another edition
2.0
I won this from Goodreads.
I found this to be fascinating, but difficult to get into. I usually enjoy details and minutiae, but here it started to really drag on me. I will have to try to get into again at some point. It still gets three stars as I found the level of detail to be impressive. It is a bit dry and difficult to get in to. I would recommend this to someone with an interest in flight and history, with a caveat warning of the extreme level of minutiae within.
I found this to be fascinating, but difficult to get into. I usually enjoy details and minutiae, but here it started to really drag on me. I will have to try to get into again at some point. It still gets three stars as I found the level of detail to be impressive. It is a bit dry and difficult to get in to. I would recommend this to someone with an interest in flight and history, with a caveat warning of the extreme level of minutiae within.
pussreboots's review against another edition
4.0
http://pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2014/comments_11/birdmen.html
stevenk's review against another edition
4.0
This book weaves together the story of the Wright Brothers and their contemporaries working on heavier than air flight, with the conflict between the Wrights and others regarding who should reap the windfalls, and the stories the personalities that brought manned flight into peoples imaginations by flying these new machines. Using newspaper reports and correspondence of the people involved the author establishes the personalities of the men who pioneered early manned flight and sets up the conflicts that drove the course of aviation in America in those early years. Managing to make the patent fight interesting by mixing in stories of personality conflict, invention, feats of aviation and tragedy to put it into historic perspective the story of the early pioneers of flight was full of passion (although sometimes misplaced or spiteful), innovation, and daring. I received a free ARC of this book through Goodreads First Reads giveaways.
rbkegley's review against another edition
4.0
A look inside the history of powered flight, weaving together the technological and business stories in an interesting way. Goldstone contends that the Wright's single-minded defense of their patent rights actually stifled innovation in American aviation, which others such as Curtiss pushed forward despite the threats of litigation.
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