Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Wright Brothers - David McCullough

The Wright Brothers

By: David McCullough

Paperback | 3 May 2016

At a Glance

Paperback


$41.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $10.44 with

 or 

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

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, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two brothers—bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio—changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe that the age of flight had begun, with the first powered machine carrying a pilot.

Orville and Wilbur Wright were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity. When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education and little money never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off, they risked being killed.

In this “enjoyable, fast-paced tale” (The Economist), master historian David McCullough “shows as never before how two Ohio boys from a remarkable family taught the world to fly” (The Washington Post) and “captures the marvel of what the Wrights accomplished” (The Wall Street Journal). He draws on the extensive Wright family papers to profile not only the brothers but their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them. Essential reading, this is “a story of timeless importance, told with uncommon empathy and fluency…about what might be the most astonishing feat mankind has ever accomplished…The Wright Brothers soars” (The New York Times Book Review).
Industry Reviews
"David McCullough's The Wright Brothers is a story about two brothers and one incredible moment in American history. But it's also a story that resonates with anyone who believes deeply in the power of technology to change lives - and the resistance some have to new innovations."--Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
"A story of timeless importance, told with uncommon empathy and fluency. . . . A story, well told, about what might be the most astonishing feat mankind has ever accomplished. . . . The Wright Brothers soars."--Daniel Okrent "The New York Times Book Review"

More in Science, Technology & Medicine Biographies

Death of an Ordinary Man - Sarah Perry

RRP $36.99

$29.75

20%
OFF
Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson

Paperback

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics - Matthew Wright
Brainstorm : 2025 ABIA Social Impact Book of the Year - Richard Scolyer
How To Change Your Mind : New Science of Psychedelics - Michael Pollan
Great Australian Outback Nurses Stories - Bill Marsh

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Empire of Pain : The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe
With the End in Mind : Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial - Kathryn Mannix
Nature's Last Dance : Tales of wonder in an age of extinction - Natalie Kyriacou
Being Mortal : Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande
This is Going to Hurt : Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor - Adam Kay
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth - Chris Hadfield

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
No Time for Makeup : The life of a flying doctor and paediatrician - Elizabeth Green
Longitude - Dava Sobel

Paperback

RRP $22.99

$20.75

10%
OFF
Leonardo da Vinci - Walter Isaacson

RRP $35.00

$28.75

18%
OFF