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Lindbergh
by A. Scott Berg
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Putnam Adult (1998-09-21)
ISBN: 0399144498
EAN: 9780399144493
Dewey Decimal #: 629.13092
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 640 pages
Edition: 1St Edition
SKU: 50405
Condition: Collectable Like New
Comments: **A RARE TO FIND IN 1ST EDITION WITH A NICE DUST JACKET**. THE HARDBACK BOOK. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION, EARLY PRINT. PUTNAM, 1998. WITH GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS! HARDBACK BOOK, DUST COVER AND PAGES ARE IN PERFECT CONDITION, CLEAN AND TIGHT. RAPID SHIPPING WITH FREE TRACKING, WELL PACKAGED. SHIPPED BY EXPEDITED TO THE USA, AND BY PRIORITY AIR MAIL TO OVERSEAS.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Bestselling author and National Book Awardwinner A. Scott Berg is the first and only writer to be given unrestricted access to the massive Lindbergh archives--more than two thousand boxes of personal papers, including reams of unpublished letters and diaries--and to be allowed freely to interview Lindbergh's friends, colleagues, and family members, including his children and his widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The result is a brilliant biography that clarifies a life long blurred by myth and half-truth. From the moment he landed in Paris on May 21, 1927, Lindbergh found himself thrust on an odyssey for which he was ill-prepared--becoming the first modern media superstar, deified and demonized many times over in a single lifetime. Berg casts dramatic new light on the lonely, sometimes twisted childhood that formed the aviator's character; the astonishing transatlantic flight and thrilling, then overwhelming aftermath; the controversies surrounding the trial of his son's kidnapper, Lindbergh's fascination with Hitler's Germany and his leadership of America First; his remarkable unsung work in the fields of medical research, rocketry, anthropology, and conservation; and, at the heart of it all, his fascinating, complex marriage to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a relationship filled with sudden joy and bitter darkness. In all, it is a most compelling story of a most significant life--the most private of public figures finally revealed with a sweep and detail never before possible. In the skilled hands of A. Scott Berg, this is Lindbergh the hero--and Lindbergh the man.
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Amazon.com Review
Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris captured the imagination of a postwar generation hungry for heroes, and cemented an exalted spot for the 25-year-old pilot from Minnesota in the collective American imagination. A. Scott Berg's thorough new biography of the aviator suggests that despite the public scrutiny that accompanied his every move until his death in 1974, Lindbergh remained an intensely private man. The son of ill-matched parents who separated when he was 6, he was painfully shy and emotionally guarded. "Aviation created a brotherhood of casual acquaintances ... in which he felt comfortable," writes Berg with characteristic perceptiveness. Lindbergh's wife, the writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, gave Berg unrestricted access to her husband's and her own voluminous personal papers--and he made good use of them to assess both the couple's relationship and their activities. Probably the most startling revelation is a brief but candid discussion of Anne's affair in the late 1950s with a New Jersey doctor, which helped assuage her need to vent emotions in a way her buttoned-up husband found insupportable. (During the horrendous days in 1932 when their 20-month-old son was kidnapped and killed, Berg notes, she never once saw Charles cry.) The biography is solid on all aspects of Lindbergh's career, including his notorious urging that America stay out of World War II; Berg rebuts charges that Lindbergh was a Nazi or a traitor, but rightly criticizes the anti-Semitism latent in some of his speeches. With this book, Berg succeeds in surveying Lindbergh's fascinating life and assessing its historic impact.
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Customer Reviews
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Incredible!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-04-14
If you like historical non-fiction, this is a must-read. I was a little skeptical about reading a biography about Lindbergh, but this novel has been a pleasure to read. The book gives a enlightening perspective on America in the early 1900's, and I have learned a lot about the history of aviation that has been extremely interesting even though I didn't think I wanted to learn about it! I highly recommend this book.
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Lindbergh by Scott Brown
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-03-20
Excellent book. Purchased used but the condition of the book was like new. Lindberg by Scott Brown is well written
and if you have an interest in historical events of the 20th Century, you'll find this book an outstanding choice.
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Lindbergh: A Much Maligned 20th Century Visionary
Rating  (4)
Date: 2009-07-12
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I came late to this party, having just finished (mid-2009) Berg's 1998 biography of Charles A. Lindbergh, who I consider to be an aviation and environmental visionary.
It amazes me that otherwise well-intentioned people allow themselves to be distracted by his [insert current number here] illegitimate children or alleged Nazi sympathies. (In my opinion, there are no illegitimate children but multitudes of wayward parents.)
If you are one whose head and heart has been turned by this sort of calumny, this book will help you gain the perspective you need on an unlikely hero, a world citizen and arguably the first modern global celebrity.
The author, who was granted unprecedented access to voluminous primary source files, clearly attempts to provide a balanced, but measured, biography. In doing so, it becomes obvious that Lindbergh accomplished great things despite a bizarre childhood, an obsessive personality, a difficult marriage, the famous murder of his firstborn and decades of unrelenting media intrusions into his private life.
But his contributions--some of them incredible and surprising--to our world far outweigh these significant negatives.
The book is riveting, readable and well-written.
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hagiography and non-history
Rating  (1)
Date: 2009-02-15
2 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
There should be a zero or minus star category. Read the book a few years ago, only to find after the most superficial googling and fact-checking, the author omitted or did not find out about Lindbergh's multiple illegitimate children by two German women. Besides soft pedalling his notorious racism and anti-Semitism, how can this be considered a biography when such basic information is left out? Is there going to be a corrected edition?
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A Fascinating Biography of an American Original Charles Lindbergh
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-08-23
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
~Lindbergh~ is an astute an well-written biography by acclaimed writer A. Scott Berg. Berg captures the life of this most fascinating character. What unfolds is an amazing tale of the aviator turned adventurer turned statesmen turned war hero.
Aviator Charles Lindbergh, gained acclaim for the first solo, non-stop transatlantic flight across Long Island, New York to Paris, France in 1927 in the famed "Spirit of St. Louis." Not long after, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. At the time, Lindbergh was seen as a man of seemingly impeccable character. He became an American hero overnight.
A. Scott Berg casts light on Charles' complex marriage to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the daughter of the famed J.P. Morgan investment banker. His marriage had its ups and downs due to his indiscretions, and it was not a fairy-tale marriage by any stretch of the imagination. Though, public perception certainly believed the marriage as a storybook romance in 1927. Berg also illustrates how tragedy hit the Lindbergh family and the whole nation in 1932 with sensitivity.
Lindbergh, being an acclaimed aviator, was invited to Germany in the 1930s, where he subsequently received a medal. It was an opportunity that intrigued him, for the Germans were renowned for their innovation in aeronautics. With the approval of Nazi chieftains Hermann Goering and Ernst Udet, Lindbergh was permitted to inspect and tour German Luftwaffe facilities, and view some of their latest innovations such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Junkers Ju 88. He became enamored of German aviation technology not coincidentally thereafter. He believed that German aviation was superior to that of the Americans and British. Why? Probably, because it was. His trip to Germany, however, soon soiled his reputation, particularly after 1939, despite the fact that Lindbergh returned the commendation awarded by the German government. When misguided historians like Max Wallace present Lindbergh as a Nazi sycophant, he conveniently forgets, either out of ignorance or obfuscation, that Lindbergh came to Germany at the urgent request of the U.S. military attaché at the American embassy in Berlin. The military attaché was charged with learning everything possible about Germany's new warplanes. In other words, Lindbergh was covertly providing U.S. intelligence, and playing off of his reputation as an aviator of international fame to gain a warm reception by the Germans. He might not have brought back stolen 1:6 scale airplane models from the hangar offices and secret James Bond snapshot pictures, but he was doing his country a service nonetheless.
His political odyssey took some strange turns, and it put him at the helm of the American First Committee which pressed the case for keeping the United States neutral and out of World War II with Germany. While his patriotism and motives have been brought into question, Berg gives us a few reasons not to question Lindbergh's sincerity. When the war began, Lindbergh was quick to uphold his honor, and be a part of the Army Air Corps unofficially. Unfortunately, being the bitter partisan, President FDR, stripped him of his opportunity to fly in dress ranks, and he flew unofficially as a contractor. But Lindbergh earned much success dogfighting against Japanese over the Pacific. He was denied his deserved commendations because of politics.
This book is a marvelous journey into the life of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Berg sculptures a sensitive and astutely written account of the life of this acclaimed American. If read, in tandem with Lindbergh's on autobiographical journal "The Spirit of St. Louis," one can certainly get a fascinating picture of his life. The superb prose is matched by the fascinating insights of the author who had direct access to the Lindbergh family's personal archives.
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