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Lindbergh

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This 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 at once Lindbergh the hero--and Lindbergh the man.

Awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

From one of America's most acclaimed biographers comes the definitive account of the life of one of the nation's most legendary, controversial, and enigmatic figures: aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.

688 pages, Paperback

First published September 21, 1998

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A. Scott Berg

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 325 reviews
Profile Image for Will Byrnes.
1,325 reviews121k followers
March 23, 2023
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A. Scott Berg - Image from his site

The book is well-deserving of its Pulitzer. Lindbergh was one of the most interesting people of the 20th century and this book gives us a fly-on-the-wall look at many critical parts of his life, the heroics of his early aviation triumphs, the horror of the kidnapping of his child, his elevation and victimization by the press. I learned much that I did not know about Lindbergh, for instance that he helped design an early artificial heart, that he applied his aviation expertise to revolutionize archaeology and that he operated as a spy for the USA while on visits to Germany and to the USSR. There is much more in this large volume. And there is much time allocated to his wife Ann, a fascinating person in her own right. A great read, not only full of information, but engaging and enjoyable.



=============================EXTRA STUFF

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Profile Image for Matt.
963 reviews29.1k followers
August 1, 2020
“On May 21, 1927, at 10:24 p.m., the Spirit of St. Louis landed – having flown 3,614 miles from New York, nonstop, in thirty-three hours, thirty minutes, and thirty seconds. And in that instant, everything changed – for both the pilot and the planet…There was no holding the one hundred fifty thousand people back. Looking out the side of his plane and into the glare of lights, Lindbergh could see only that the entire field ahead was ‘covered with running figures!’ With decades of hindsight, the woman Lindbergh would marry came to understand what that melee actually signified. ‘Fame – Opportunity – Wealth – and also tragedy & loneliness & frustration rushed at him in those running figures on the field at Le Bourget,’ she would later write. ‘And he is so innocent & unaware…’”
- A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh

Fame is a funny and elusive thing. Sometimes it comes about for obvious reasons: reaching a high political office; winning a battle; throwing a perfect spiral. Other times, though, it is more capricious, derived from far-less-logical feats or accomplishments. Today, for example, you can find fame by simply failing in front of a camera, in ways that make the rest of the world want to share the video with their friends. But for every insta-star, there are millions of unknowns, as the non-virality of my dance videos on Tik-Tok can attest.

This kind of fame – call it celebrity – requires not only skill (or the epic lack thereof), but timing.

As you discover in A. Scott Berg’s award-winning biography, Lindbergh, timing – for both good and ill – meant almost everything in the life of aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.

On May 21, 1927, Lindbergh became the first person to fly nonstop between New York and Paris, shortening the breadth of the world. According to Berg, this single act made him the most famous person in the world and – taking into account the fact that there were less outlets for celebrity – perhaps the most famous person of all time, at least in terms of Q score.

Built up to such august heights, Lindbergh had nowhere to go but down. And down is where he went. The way that Lindbergh went from obscurity to ubiquity, and the way he was lifted up only to be torn down, is not necessarily the quintessential American story, but it sure feels like it.

If you want that story, Berg’s book is the first place to go.

Lindbergh is a comprehensive, sweeping, informative one-volume life of the Lone Eagle. It is mostly shorn of analysis and attempts to stand without judgment, though it is impossible for any biographer not to take sides with his subject, at least a little.

The theme of this Pulitzer Prize winning book is the fickleness of popularity. Landing at Le Bourget turned a twenty-five-year-old pilot into an international superstar. He was feted, adored, honored, and paid handsomely. Yet nothing in this world comes without its costs, and Berg goes to great pains to demonstrate the consequences of being recognized everywhere; of your private acts becoming a matter of public concern; and of your every word ending up in some newspaper somewhere.

Berg begins Lindbergh’s story with his Swedish forebears, his birth in Michigan, and his troubled early life in Little Falls, Minnesota, with a politician father and bipolar mother. What is striking about Lindbergh's early life is its unremarkable nature. Lindbergh wasn’t successful in school, he didn't know what he wanted for himself, and he had a serious case of self-imposed sexual repression. Speaking from experience, this describes many Minnesotans. Most of us don't go on to pilot rickety aircraft over the ocean.

After leaving school, Lindbergh started flight school, but the school promptly closed. He took up barnstorming, learned to fly, and survived four emergency parachute drops. He flew a mail route stationed out of Lambert Field, in St. Louis. Then came the Contest – the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.

Lindbergh did it, of course, but it's only a small part of this book, the turning point of a fascinating epic. In Berg's hands, the famous flight takes up less than half a chapter, and is probably one of the least interesting parts of this biography.

Fame followed, as well as marriage to a diplomat's daughter – the talented Anne Morrow. Then comes tragedy, so Shakespearean in its dimensions you think it's fiction. There are two chapters dedicated to Bruno Richard Hauptman and the Crime of the Century (at least, one of the many crimes of a long, criminal century), a chilling tale that starts with an empty baby's crib and ends in the electric chair.

From there, Lindbergh leaves America for Europe to escape. He becomes a civilian shuttle diplomat, and unfortunately begins to fawn over Nazi Germany (there is a darkly comic scene where Goering is showing Lindbergh his tiger, and the tiger urinates on Goering's white pants).

Berg spends a good deal of time on Lindbergh's America First speeches. This was the only time in the book I felt like Berg was taking sides. He bends over backwards to rehabilitate Lindbergh's reputation during this period.

The rehabilitation is probably at least partly warranted. There is no denying that Lindbergh’s admiration of Hitler was unfortunate and ill-judged. Even in the 30s, there was ample evidence of repression in Germany, focused most strongly on the Jews. Nevertheless, judging Lindbergh based on the complete hindsight we have of Hitler’s crimes is a little bit unfair. To his credit, after his misbegotten affair with isolation, Lindbergh tried to serve his country. President Franklin Roosevelt kept him out of military service, but Lindbergh went to the South Pacific as a civilian consultant, illegally flew over 50 bombing missions, and shot down a Japanese plane.

Lindbergh did many other amazing things. He was instrumental in helping Dr. Robert Goddard start the American Rocket program. He was fascinated with medical science and helped develop an artificial heart. He won the Medal of Honor and the Pulitzer Prize. In his later life he became a devoted conservationist. He was an iconoclast: demanding of his children; meticulous in his personal life; untethered and always on the move. There are many admirable traits, along with many unflattering ones. He was stubborn, refused to back down, and refused to rethink long-held positions. He could be hard and unfeeling towards his wife, show flashes of great temper, and lacked the ability to understand that while he was “great” – thrust up from the masses by luck, skill, and the alignment of the stars – others were just “normal.”

For me, at least, the best part of Lindbergh is the saga of Charles and Anne’s marriage. By the final third of this weighty volume, this aspect of Lindbergh’s life takes center-stage. Anne was a supremely talented and bestselling author. However, she was also fragile, pensive, and shy, and her belligerent, demanding, oft-immature husband came close to destroying her. As Berg notes, Lindbergh set the tone of the marriage. When he wanted to leave for parts uncharted, he left, while Anne stayed behind with the children. When Lindbergh wanted to be home, Anne had to wait on him hand-and-foot (he even threatened to shoot the phone when she attempted to answer it). I give Berg credit for his willingness to portray Lindbergh in such an unpleasant light.

At this point, it is worth noting that when it comes to his family life, Lindbergh was even worse than presented here. That is, for all his research, for all his access to Lindbergh’s private papers, Berg never discovered Lindbergh’s secret German families, complete with secret German kids.

Lindbergh died of cancer in his 70s. Knowing the end was coming, he planned it down to the last detail, even plotting out a way that he could be buried without embalming (under Hawaii law, he had to be in the ground within 8 hours of death). Whatever else you think of the guy, and I have strongly conflicting thoughts about him, he faced the end like...well, like someone who'd been taunting death his whole life.

Lindbergh praised the doctors for having done “a magnificent job,” but he realized they were fighting a losing battle. He did not want to chance “another 36 hours,” which might bring enough deterioration to prevent his going [to Hawaii] at all. The doctor accused the patient of turning his back on medical science. Lindbergh replied that science had done all it could, that the problem was no longer medical but philosophical.
.

Berg is a great synthesizer of information. He uses a lot of primary sources (and both Lindbergh and Anne were prolific writers) so the story often comes in their own words, with great insight into their minds. (As mentioned above, there are gaps). Of Lindbergh and Anne, however, I felt I knew Anne better. Lindbergh always remains at an arm's length. This isn't Berg's fault. Lindbergh was a stoic and never partook of a deep internal dialogue (or if he did, he never wrote about it). Anne, on the other hand, was all feeling, so the best way to understand Lindbergh is to understand Anne, and Lindbergh's impact on her.

Fittingly then, it is Anne – writing about that moment when her future husband landed his plane in Paris – who delivers the great epitaph to Charles Lindbergh's life:

“There is something in the directness – simplicity – innocence of that boy arriving after that terrific flight – completely unaware of the world interest – the wild crowds below. The rush of the crowds to the plane is symbolic of life rushing at him – a new life – new responsibilities – he was completely unaware of & unprepared for. I feel for him – mingled excitement & apprehension – a little what one feels when a child is born & you look at his fresh untouched...little face & know that he will meet joy – but sorrow too – struggle – pain – frustration.”


As I noted at the top, fame is incredibly reliant on timing.

To that end, Lindbergh was a child of fortune. He was a great pilot, to be sure, but what he was trying to accomplish was a feat being attempted by dozens of others. Before he landed, others had come close. After he landed, others would too. It just so happened that Lindbergh was first. He was sitting in the final chair when the music stopped. As a result, he is remembered; those others are forgotten.

Yet timing can have two edges. As the world crept towards a colossal war, Lindbergh decided to cozy up to a fanatical dictator, all while preaching America First. Lindbergh kept talking about isolationism up until the moment when Japanese bombs started smashing through the decks of U.S. battleships moored in Pearl Harbor.

To some extent, timing can be controlled. For the most part, though, it is a cosmic force, whether that force be luck or destiny or divine intervention.

Charles Lindbergh could prepare for his fateful flight. Nothing could have prepared him for what came after.
Profile Image for Iain.
Author 7 books76 followers
September 4, 2023
A compelling study of a man full of contradictions. A tragic hero and a tragic villain, a loving husband and father who managed to isolate his loved ones, a man who became famous in aviation and kickstarted the global travel industry, yet ended his life seeking a return to nature and rejecting technology. A man who embraced all humankind, yet somehow held beliefs that were clearly antisemitic and racist. One of the first to benefit from tabloid celebrity, and one of the first to suffer from the press intrusion that haunted his life, most notably in the tragic kidnap and murder of his son. It is unfortunate though that the book neither mentions nor even hints at Lindbergh's illicit affairs in Germany, where he fathered several children with 3 mistresses, children who only learned he was their father after he had passed away. Bizarre that it is not referenced in anyway, and a gaping hole in the story.
Profile Image for Chrissie.
2,811 reviews1,445 followers
October 9, 2014
This book, the whole 31 hours of the audio version, was fascinating from the very start to the very end. I was not once bored. The spread of topics covered is amazing. Surely you already know about Lindbergh's solo non-stop transatlantic flight of 33 and 1/2 hours in 1927 and the deluge of media coverage that never abated for the rest of his life and of the kidnapping of his 20-month old son in 1932. Most probably you have heard mention of his possibly anti-Semitic views. All of this is covered and much, much, much more. There is a thorough discussion of his anti-Semitic statements. There is his troubled relationship with his wife, author Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her extramarital relationships and his inability to EVER be at home. Their respective writing careers, both his own and his wife's. Not one of these issues is cut and dry. To understand you need the details and you are given these details in a thorough but also captivating manner. Humorous anecdotes too - Göring had a pet lion that peed on his trousers. Lindbergh’s daughter, who later became an author in her own right, even as a child threw out priceless lines. These are quoted. You will laugh and laugh. Lindbergh was a savant. He wrote. He philosophized. He traveled and saw the world, the whole world. Yes, he fought in the Second World War even after he had renounced his military title as colonel. He shot down a Japanese pilot, advised MacArthur – all without military rank or pay. He wanted to do his part once America had joined the war. His disputes with Roosevelt are detailed, starting from their disagreement on air mail contracts. When he lived in France Lindbergh worked with the French Nobel Prize-winning surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel. He invented a glass perfusion pump making future heart surgeries possible. He was a conservationist and an environmentalist. So you think he was only the aviator who crossed the Atlantic in his little Spirit of St. Louis winning the Orteig. No! That is simply the beginning of the story.

All these topics are interestingly presented, and it is this that makes the book fun to read. The little details are sometimes amazing, sometimes, heartrending, sometimes amusing. At the end you know his personal traits, his strengths and weaknesses, not only of him but his wife and children too. The book moves chronologically forward. It covers his parents’ lives, his birth in 1902 Detroit and his death in 1974 Maui, Hawaii, of lymphoma. He planned every detail of his funeral and burial! Weird, to say the least! This is all part of who he was. He was despotic, could never sit still and had to control everyone and everything. You get the good and the bad. The family endorsed the writing of this biography and provided full documentation – letters and diaries and interviews. The book was written with their consent. I wondered at times if perhaps the author’s views were a bit too lenient, but let me state clearly, I do not find the book favorably biased. I wished at times that some of the quotes were discussed and evaluated more thoroughly. OK, that is what was said and there is documented proof, but how does the author interpret the facts. I feel the author should have more clearly spoken of the rampant anti-Semitism in the US (and the world) at this time and that most Americans were against intervention, i.e. until Pearl Harbor. This is why I found the book very, very good rather than simply amazing. Tell me, how often do you read a book that never ever drags?! .

A word about the audiobook narration, by Lloyd James: in one word - superb! He reads the lines slowly and steadily, pausing when appropriate, and giving you time to think. THIS is how I like books to be read. No theatrical stunts; that is not necessary if the author's lines are fascinating. Occasionally he swallows the last word of a sentence so you don't hear it properly.

********************************

WOW, this book is fascinating. It is NEVER EVER boring! I have read a little more than half, I think.

OK, Lindbergh buys the island Ile Iliec in Brittany on the Pink Granite Coast. He says, "I have never seen a place I want to live as much!" Do I agree? Yes. I loved the book even before he said this.
Profile Image for Steve.
336 reviews1,110 followers
March 3, 2021
https://thebestbiographies.com/2021/0...

“Lindbergh” is A. Scott Berg’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of one of America’s most famous aviators. Berg is also the author of best-selling biographies of Woodrow Wilson, Max Perkins, Samuel Goldwyn and a somewhat controversial biography/memoir of Katharine Hepburn. Berg is currently working on a biography of Thurgood Marshall.

In nearly every way, Charles Lindbergh’s life seems tailor-made for a riveting biography. Fortunately, A. Scott Berg is up to the challenge of memorializing the mesmerizing – and occasionally maddening – circumstances of Lindbergh’s seven decades as an aviator, scientist, victim, tone-deaf isolationist, cold-hearted companion and relentless wanderer.

Berg was the first biographer granted access to thousands of boxes of personal papers held by the Lindbergh family, and his efforts to research and write this book spanned nearly a decade. But this biography is less notable for its fresh revelations and new insights than for an incredibly accessible, free-flowing and richly-descriptive narrative which sweeps the reader through Lindbergh’s life at a nearly perfect pace.

The biography is generally admiring of Lindbergh – a man hazily remembered by most Americans as an unimpeachable, heroic figure – but the book is by no means hagiographic. Lindbergh’s lamentable tendencies as a husband and father, his anti-Semitic views and his pathological inflexibility are fully displayed. Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Charles’s widow) also provided access to sixty years of her diaries, so Berg is able to document both the highlights and the challenges in their relationship with impressive acuity.

There are countless wonderful moments in this biography, but some of the most captivating include a robust review of Lindbergh’s preparation for his non-stop flight from the New York to Paris, an excellent chapter which places the reader in the cockpit during Lindbergh’s famous journey and a very good rendering of the “Lindbergh baby” kidnapping incident as well as the ensuing criminal investigation and trial.

But some readers will find the book too melodramatic at times – almost as though Berg’s primary objective is to ensure his audience is never tempted to put the book down. In addition, the last decades of Lindbergh’s life feel comparatively rushed and too matter-of-fact. Although the reader witnesses a frenzy of late-life activity, these chapters seems more a mechanical review of Lindbergh’s travel itinerary than analysis of his life.

But the biography’s most conspicuous shortcoming is its failure to uncover Lindbergh’s affairs with three German mistresses (two of them sisters) and the seven children who resulted. The relationships began in the late 1950s and were not publicly revealed until a few years after the publication of Berg’s biography. DNA testing – and more than one-hundred letters – have verified the claims. Most of Lindbergh’s “secret” children have declined to speak out but in 2005 three of them wrote a book regarding their situation (“The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh“) which, sadly, seems to only be available auf Deutsch.

Overall, A. Scott Berg’s “Lindbergh” is a wonderfully readable, prize-winning biography of the life of Charles A. Lindbergh. But because it is missing an important extracurricular component of his later life, its status as the “definitive” Lindbergh biography is tenuous. Until a book is published which combines good writing with an even more complete account of Lindbergh’s personal life, however, Berg’s biography is a clear winner.

Overall rating: 4 stars
Profile Image for Arminius.
206 reviews50 followers
June 9, 2015
Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg begins with Charles A. Lindbergh’s very interesting parents. His father was a very respectful and successful lawyer in Minnesota who became a congressman and eventually a nomad. His mother was an educated school teacher from Detroit whose father was a controversial dentist at the time. He had a shop where he would invent numerous machines to work on teeth. Young Charles would visit and his grandfather would teach him to work with his various tools. This sparked an interest in Charles in mechanics.

Charles was a very shy boy growing up. He had a doting mother and often absent father.

He was known to have few friends and enjoyed rafting and his pets. He attended college for a year before he flunked out but became interested in air planes. He drove his motorcycle to Nebraska where there was a place where one could learn to fly planes. He flew for a while then joined the Army Air Corps where he honed his skills. He joined a Flying Circus Act where he performed stunts. When the Post Office decided to use planes to transport mail, businesses to support it popped up soon afterwards. Robinson Aircraft, one of those businesses, offered Lindbergh a job as its chief pilot for its Chicago to St. Louis run. For Robinson he surveyed routes and planned landing and emergency fields.

At the time a lucrative $25,000 prize named the Orteig Prize would be awarded to the first pilot that flew nonstop between New York and Paris. Lindbergh knew he was the man to do it. So he went around the St. Louis area business men and gathered funding for an airplane to be built for his attempted trip.

Lindbergh raised the necessary funding and had a plane built to support one person. He was smart enough to figure out how much weight the plane must hold in order to make the cross Atlantic trip. He calculated how much fuel the plane could carry as well as the amount of food and water he must have. He strived to use the least amount of weight possible. He needed enough fuel to get across the ocean. It would be dangerous if he did not have enough fuel to make it but almost as dangerous if he had too much fuel because that could weigh the plane down. A second danger was if he lost his direction he would surely run out of fuel. Pilots in the 1920’s used to follow railroad tracks to keep them in the correct direction. Lindbergh had a superb ability to know where he was going using ocean landmarks like icebergs.

All things went as planned. He arrived in Paris to world wide applause. He became the most famous person in the world for accomplishing this incredible feat. He was welcomed with honors and parades in France. He was invited to England and Germany where he received a medal form Adolph Hitler for his gallant accomplishment. He was asked by most European countries to inspect their beginning air forces.

He came home to America to a hero’s welcome. He was asked to oversea developing Airlines such as PAN AM. He sat on boards for most Air Transportation companies. These companies gave him generous compensation for doing so. He was feted by a lot of politicians and wealthy individuals. He was asked to give speeches for numerous organizations. One such invitation took him to the house of America’s Mexican ambassador Dwight Morrow. Morrow was an extremely wealthy individual coming from the JP Morgan banking dynasty to the prestigious job as the Ambassador to Mexico. Charles was asked to stay with the Morrows for a few days. This is where Morrow’s daughter Anne met Charles and eventually became infatuated with his good looks and charismatic charm. After another visit to with the Morrows, Charles asked Anne on a date. They fell in love and married.

He took Anne on numerous flights where she learned to co-polite air planes. They traveled all over the world. These adventures would fuel some of her future books. But, in a odd twist, Charles adventurous nature would never end and cause strain in their marriage due to Charles long bouts of home-life absenteeism.

Their first child was kidnapped. He most likely died in the kidnapping. The corresponding trial would become the “Crime of the Century.” The rest that I will say about it is that the kidnapping of their baby is exhaustively discussed.

After the trial things started to look up for the Lindbergh’s until WWII started in Europe. Charles who had long praised the German Luftwaffe as the world’s best Air Force also vehemently protested America participating in WWII. As President Roosevelt’s popularity increased and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor Charles's opinions became very unpopular. The President then sent the dogs after him. He sent his aid Harold Ickes on the attack attempting to discredit Lindbergh in radio and newspaper appearances. Charles fought back with speeches. This strategy hurt him. Parts of his very good speeches would be manipulated by Roosevelt cronies. For example, in a speech, he blamed capitalists looking to make money and the Jewish-controlled media for starting the war fever. As a result, new attacks came at him from all over as being an anti-Semite as well as a traitor. Neither of which he was. Nonetheless, he became very unpopular.

In fact, once the war started he volunteered to fight even though he was already in his forties. However, President Roosevelt did not allow it. But when the President died, the new President Truman allowed Charles to help the Allies by appointing him as a civilian trainer in the Pacific. While training Army pilots, he dazzled the most experienced pilots with his piloting skills. He even went on mission with them and shot down an enemy plane.

After the war, his reputation rebounded due to his war time participation and the publishing of his Pulitzer Prize winning book “The Spirit of St. Louis.” He described in detail how he crossed the Atlantic by himself with astonishing clarity.

With his resulting rebounded reputation he was offered one event and ceremony attendance after another. He routinely turned down most offers but returned interesting individually addressed refusal letters. For example, when a Girl Scout local asked him if they could use his name for the naming of their troupe he replied that organizations should not use a living person to name itself after.

At this time he also continued his worldwide travels attempting to save any endangered species or natural habitat he could find from the Green Turtle in the Indian Ocean to writing General Westmoreland in Vietnam and getting him to issue orders to prevent American servicemen from sending ivory back to the U.S. He would visit tribes in the wild jungles of Indonesia and live with them for days at a time.

The book details all these activities as well as his wife Ann’s prolific writing career. But in an extremely detailed way the author described Lindbergh’s last days which, at least for me, were kind of sad. However, there is so much in this book about a man with a remarkably adventurous life that I would rank this book as also a remarkably adventurous book.




Profile Image for Scott Foshee.
212 reviews5 followers
November 29, 2013
Well Written Profile of a Brilliant yet Disturbing Man, Probably Due For an Update

A. Scott Berg does a good job in Lindbergh. It is interesting, informative, and keeps you turning the pages. He was granted access to sources by the Lindbergh family, including original access to the diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. This access helps the story in that it fills in much of the blanks of the life of the intensely private Charles Lindbergh, but it may also hurt in retaining the objectivity in some instances.

Lindbergh comes across as a successful but very strange man. It bothers me that Charles and Anne spend so much time away from their children, especially their second son Jon right after the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping episode where their first son was killed. They spend months away from newborn Jon, flying to Greenland, Europe, Africa and South America before returning to him. There is also a particularly disturbing episode where he insists that their infant son be left in a cage on the roof in the cold weather to “toughen him up.”

Lindbergh is portrayed as hard-driving but not having much of a personality. This might be because of his intense desire to hide his private life from the public eye. He was one of the first worldwide celebrities who had to cope with the invasion and distortions by the press. He is cold and dictatorial to his family when (rarely) home. He travels constantly, circling the world several times a year into his 70s working for various aircraft concerns and environmental causes.

Lindbergh’s scientific work, especially in developing machines to keep human organs alive for transplantation, was very interesting and was something I think most do not know about him. The side of him engaged in scientific endeavors is all the more impressive considering his limited formal education. Also, I did not know about his father’s political career, which enabled Charles to spend time among the halls of power in Washington D.C. as a youth.

The America First section dragged a bit, I thought. It is easy to look back on WWII and think our involvement was inevitable, but that was not necessarily the thinking of everyone at the time. Berg does a good job here dissecting Lindbergh's speeches and writings to show the line he walked between patriot and perceived Nazi sympathizer and accused anti-Semite. It also highlights how the press and popular sentiment can skew perception for decades to come, whether something is true or not. Lindbergh visited and was decorated by numerous countries because of his fame, including Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. He reported on the military strength of Germany at the time, and lobbied through the America First organization to keep the U.S. out of more destructive European wars. For these efforts and others he was perceived by many at the time to be a Nazi sympathizer. In explaining Lindbergh’s controversial public positions prior to WWII, I wonder if Berg may have skewed objectivity a bit in deference to the family.

It must be tough to write a "definitive biography" of a public figure, because it seems as if things often keep coming to light many years later. We know that Charles Lindbergh did a lot of fascinating things, but not necessarily why. Is this because Lindbergh tried to be such a private person? Why did he fly the Atlantic, other than the fact that he thought he could do it? The story lacks emotion. As I read it I began to wonder more and more if Lindbergh had Asperger’s syndrome or some derivative of it. After I finished the book I did some research and found out that some people suspect just that. This is something not brought up at all in the book, which may be due to the fact that many symptoms of Asperger's have only been recognized in recent years. In addition, since the volume was published in 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize, DNA evidence has been uncovered that shows he had as many as 7 illegitimate children by three different European mistresses. I think the book is probably due for an update.
Profile Image for Porter Broyles.
448 reviews56 followers
October 20, 2021
This is a very well done book and it is very different from other biographies. Some biographers idealize or lionize their subject---but most biographies seem to reveal an affections between the author and the subject.

Berg makes me love and hate Lindbergh. He makes me angry with him and empathize with him. At the end of the day, I walk away agreeing with a bi-polar feeling towards Linbergh!

But the story that resonated the most with me was not about Lindberght, but about his wife. The book definitely tells the story of his wife as ancillary to Charles, but it is her story that drove me to read the book.

************Spoiler Warning*****************

1) I fully understand Chaerles angst when it comes to freedom of the press vs freedom of the individual. His life became one where the paparazzi was constantly hounding him. How he felt compelled to get married while leaking that a wedding was being planned---then having to sneak onto a boat to have his honeymoon. (Not to mention the people who surrounded his boat trying to get pictures---which forced his boat to put to sea. )

2) The story about his fleeing the US, but gave an exclusive to somebody that they would sit on the story until his ship was a day out to sea. How the newspaper adhered to his request and blocked all telegrams or people from leaving the paper until run time.

3) How his wife was the first woman to be licensed as a glider pilot.

4) I particularly felt sorry for his wife, Anne. For years she subrogated her desires to play the perfect daughter and then wife. She gets published and meets another aviator who wants to get to know her for who she was--- not because of who her father/husband were. While a the potential for an affair existed, it didn't occur---in part due to WWII. Unrequited love is alluded to.

5) How in 1940, she gets a short book published, "The Wave of the Future." A book that she thinks will help explain and exhonorate her husband and separate him from some of the criticism he had received for his positive impressions of Germany. How she thought she could explain him better than he. The book goes on to become an instant best seller.... and then, after FDR criticizes it, becomes one of the most reviled books of the 20th century. Berg saying it was only second to Mein Kampf. How that must have devestated her.

6) How she started to crave recognition on her own right---especially after becoming pregnant with their fourth child.

7) Then there was Linbergh's popular revival. While he had become one of the most despised men in America pre WWII, but his WWII and post WWII activities. One of those activities was Charles entering into her domain. First, he writes a short best selling booklette "Of Flight and Life". Then he writes "The Spirit of St. Louis"---a book that goes on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Granted Anne helped him with hours of editing and rewriting it, but again, he gets the credit/glory---in the field that she saw as her "craft".

8) It was very revealing in the chapter when it talked about how meticulous of records Charles demanded. He wanted every item and every cent accounted for. And he audited the household expenses. At one point, he questioned an expense. She was paying "to talk to somebody" about her problems. Charles couldn't understand why she would need to pay somebody to talk to, because Anne was the type of person that others came to talk to about their problems.

This book might have garnered 5 stars from me if it had provided an afterward or summary of what happened to Anne after Charles death. Instead, we learn that (once again) Anne put aside her life to sit by the side of a man who was either unable or unwilling to share the love his wife had for him. When he died, the book ends.
Profile Image for Teri.
709 reviews88 followers
April 5, 2017
A very well written, detailed account of the life of Charles A. Lindbergh from birth to death. Everything is covered from the famous first flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis to the Trial of the Century covering the kidnapping and murder of Charles' and Anne's first son to his political and aeronautical endeavors and eventual fight with lymphoma. The book not only covers his life from Lindbergh's own point of view, but from his wife Anne's as well. According to the end notes, Anne offered thousands of records and diary entries to the author as long as the story was about both Charles and Anne. The author lived up to the promise. The relationship was loving and strong at times, while distance and estranged at others.

I thought this was a wonderful biography without being so exhaustive and dry. Lindbergh was quite a character and that certainly comes through. There was a lot I did not know about Charles, from his time stationed in San Antonio in the Army (my home) to his time working with PanAm. Well worth the read if you are in any way interested in aeronautics or just curious about the man who made that first important flight across the Atlantic.
Profile Image for Lance Carney.
Author 14 books170 followers
March 15, 2020
When I started this biography, I knew Charles Lindbergh as the man who was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic and of the tragic kidnapping of his young son. I had no idea he was co-inventor of the artificial heart with Dr. Carrel, an activist, an author. The book is also a good study of the terrible weight of fame on a human being.

The author does not paint Lindbergh up on a pedestal, but shows his flaws, his incredible drive that takes its toll on his wife and childen. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is also detailed, which is a plus because she was as interesting and almost as decorated as her husband. "Lindbergh" was an excellent biography and a great read!
Profile Image for Christopher.
178 reviews37 followers
May 12, 2021
I read A. Scott Berg's great biography of Charles Lindbergh right after I read Lindbergh's classic book The Spirit of St. Louis, the aviator's own account of his landmark solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927.

Lindbergh's work was fresh on my mind as I read this biography. I decided to read Berg straight away because Lindbergh's book left me wanting more--the pilot shared very little of what came after he landed at Le Bourget airfield outside Paris, and I was itching to see the man's instant transformation from a solitary aviator into arguably the most famous man in the western world. I wanted to see that moment reverberate, but Lindbergh cut it short, and I felt somewhat cheated by the omission.

Berg gives a good accounting of Lindbergh's childhood--some of which was familiar from the Lindbergh book--and his description of Lindbergh's early flying and as an Air Mail pilot are also very good.

Berg's book summarizes the story of The Spirit of St. Louis very well--he sticks closely to Lindbergh's own story, along with a few biographical sketches that Lindbergh had chosen not to share (Berg highlights in particular Lindbergh's sense of humor, which Lindbergh held back from his own book). Berg also includes important observations from outside Lindbergh's point of view, which gives us a much rounder perspective of him and the world around him after the flight.

Lindbergh received a publishing contract to tell the story of The Spirit of St. Louis, but he was so dissatisfied with the ghostwritten manuscript that he cloistered himself away and wrote it on his own in a feverish period of about three weeks--a testament to the aviator's desire for integrity. The resulting book, We, was an interesting biographical account, although compromised by the short time spent writing it. His later book would be his final and definitive statement about The Spirit of St. Louis.

Interestingly, it wasn't the Orteig Prize for crossing the Atlantic that made Lindbergh rich, but the book that came from it. Primarily as a book tour and goodwill tour, Lindbergh traveled the world, flying The Spirit of St. Louis, courting his newfound celebrity. The book became a phenomenal success and made Lindbergh such a wealthy man that he never worried about money for the rest of his life.

I thought from that point in Berg's book that it would be difficult to hold my attention, because I was interested primarily in Lindbergh the aviator, not so much the man. I was curious to see how much the flight changed him, made him more careful and inward, but apart from that I was apathetic.

He married Anne Morrow in 1929, and she was to become an important figure in his life and in her own right, as well. In my own opinion, judging at least from this book, Lindbergh married very well. Anne endured his frequent absences and his difficult nature, and she became an accomplished writer and successful author. (It is my continuing belief that Charles Lindbergh's final account of The Spirit of St. Louis is at least partly the work of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.)

Lindbergh parlayed his status in aviation by playing a major role in the creation of the network of airports across the country, linking aircraft from station to station in their journeys across the United States, which we know today as the air traffic control system. That was fascinating and a pleasant surprise. It is, arguably, equally as important as Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, and possibly even more lasting, as the airport network will continue to exist far into the future.

Berg's writing is reverent and sympathetic, almost to the point of bias. Indeed, Anne Morrow Lindbergh made her archives available to Berg, and his book owes a part of its scholarship to Anne's generosity. Berg is unfailingly polite about Charles Lindbergh's life, almost explaining away his foibles and transgressions.

After I read this book, I admit I got upset when I learned that Charles had apparently fathered as many as seven children with secret families Charles had in Europe, all the products of Charles' absences from Anne. Initially, I couldn't understand why Berg would ignore or gloss over that important part of Charles' life--but those revelations did not come to light until after Berg's book had been published, so it was not the author's omission.

I think I've probably said enough in this review already without contemplating their son's tragic kidnapping in 1932, or Lindbergh's ignorant political bumblings in the 30s and 40s. I'll just say both of those events are well covered by the author, and they're two of the book's most important sections.

A. Scott Berg won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for this book in 1999. I wish he would update it to cover the revelations about Lindbergh that surfaced after its publication, but sadly, that will probably be the task of another, likely lesser biography.
Profile Image for Helga Cohen.
639 reviews
October 10, 2017
This was a fascinating book about a compelling figure, aviator Charles Lindbergh, written by a very deserved Pulitzer Prize writer. He writes with clarity a very definitive biography of a legendary, controversial and mesmerizing man and his wife. I learned much about his life from his early childhood, his early heroic aviation successes, the kidnapping of his son, his anti-war non-intervention stance, and how the press treated him. It was also fascinating to learn about his interests in science and medicine and how he was involved in the early design of the artificial heart and medical research. He spent his later years on advocacy of the environment and traveled the world in support of it. He was a very complex figure. We also learn a lot about his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, her life and her trials and her husbands neglect. It was well worth reading. I highly recommend this book.
Profile Image for Tony.
436 reviews6 followers
August 29, 2015
This is a highly informative and generally enjoyable biography. Berg manages to not only capture historical events, but also Lindbergh's personality and values. Upon completion, the reader feels as if he knows not only what Lindbergh did, but also the man, himself. On the negative side, Berg occasionally goes into too much detail. This is especially true when it comes to Anne Lindbergh. In fact, there is so much detail on Anne that this book could easily be called The Lindberghs. While Anne is a genuinely interesting figure, including her biography here creates a rather bloated work. Additionally, the author somewhat soft-pedals Lindbergh's WWII era antisemitism.
January 25, 2020
An excellent book , which I enjoyed from beginning to the end. Thank you for the book, Drew! There is so much about his life and family I had no idea about, beyond his solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris in 1927, and the tragic death of his and his wife, Ann’s, baby boy who was kidnapped and killed. Lindbergh was a remarkable man and his story is well worth reading. It was interesting to learn that he chose to be buried in Hawaii. Just so much to learn!
Profile Image for Clif.
454 reviews135 followers
September 4, 2023
Charles A. Lindbergh, "the Lone Eagle" was highly praised by Americans because he was exactly the kind of person they wished to think of as the American ideal. White, tall, modest, fearless, never seeking the limelight, self-confident, he was as close to the embodiment of the Boy Scout motto, "be prepared" as anyone could be.

Yet upon first glance at the cover picture, I thought it could easily be a photo of a member of the Hitler Youth. All of the attributes given above could also be found in the male Aryan ideal of National Socialism. In fact, it was not the story of his transatlantic flight that made me curious to know more about him, but his tireless effort at the head of the America First movement to keep the U.S. out of WW2. He was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer and was the symbol of opposition to FDR's obvious tilt in favor of Britain against Germany.

Each of us has a makeup that may or may not be in tune with the times. Lindbergh was the man for his time. Not just fearless, he was unusually oblivious to situations that would frighten most people. His start in flying came when he saw a stunt flyer perform. He took up the job with gusto, not hesitating to risk his life repeatedly with wing walking and, my favorite, changing airplanes with another pilot in midair so that each pilot landed a different plane from the one he took off in. As was his nature, he took his transatlantic flight laconically, fighting fatigue far more than fear. Actually the only fear he had was that someone else (and there were several others) would beat him in the effort.

Was he emotionally lacking? He had no interest in women until he decided it was time he found a wife. He did in the form of the remarkable Anne Morrow and then from all the solid evidence never looked at another woman to his dying day. Anne, several years younger than Charles, was awed by him which was not helped by something of an inferiority complex. She flew with him on adventure after adventure early in their marriage, being a navigator and radio operator for him and learning to fly herself. To the end it was always what he wanted. I can't think of an instance where he didn't do exactly what he wanted to do.

Speaking of being suited for what one does in life, Charles was the perfect pilot. He was obsessive in preparing (remember the Boy Scout motto) for a flight to the point of weighing everything to the ounce and insisting on packing it all himself. Great for a pilot where a small error can be fatal, but not so great in a father who issues lists of things to be done to his children on a regular basis and remains away from the family for long periods of time on his latest flight to everywhere you can imagine around the globe.

He didn't get demonstrably angry (low affect, again) at anyone. He never physically mistreated Anne, but left her on her own for such long periods that it's fair to say the majority of their married life she was keeping their serial homes in order by herself. Personally, I find it hard to stomach people buying a house in the cloud forest on a whim, then another on a private island, then a third in the Alps, another in Hawaii. And none of them will do for long! This seems to infect the wealthy regardless of how humble their origin. All the while billions of people have little to eat and live in shacks. But I digress.

I confess I felt far more attraction to Anne as a human being, who became a very successful writer and was wonderfully open psychologically, than to the strangely chilly Lindbergh. I cannot conceive of a more supportive or lovable wife.

There is much to admire in what he did, championing the cause of indigenous peoples and the environment. He supported worthy causes with his wealth and he was refreshingly free of vanity, always standing aside to let others take credit. He was in so many ways a nice guy. Friends could always count on him. Most remarkable, his love of aviation dimmed over time as his interest in people increased. As he so aptly said "it used to be the man flew the airplane, now the airplane flies the man." He had regrets about the technological world he had helped to move along.

His prestige and skill made him welcome at the highest levels. He toured pre-WW2 Europe inspecting national air forces and reporting back to the U.S. government on what he found. He was on the board of Pan American Airways and in the huddle discussing aircraft development right up to the 747. He was in the know with Robert Goddard on the development of rocketry. Presidents Kennedy and Nixon were eager to have him around. Eisenhower promoted him to general. He was honored by royalty. The world was his oyster yet it did not go to his head.

Was he a Nazi as some claimed? No, but his concern over the future of "the white race" and his interest in eugenics didn't do him proud. He was willing to see England be defeated by the Germans in WW2 if that would keep Germany strong against his bugbear, the Soviet Union. Once Hitler declared war on the U.S., Lindburgh did not hesitate to join the war effort wholeheartedly, but bad feelings from the FDR administration kept him in the role of advisor. This did not prevent him from flying combat missions in the Pacific against Japan with a wink and a nod from General MacArthur.

What a story, his life, and I haven't mentioned that he developed infusion devices to keep organs alive outside the body for record periods of time. His curiosity and intelligence were matched by his inventiveness.

As for the kidnapping and death of his first child, it created a media circus but in the long run both he and his wife were able to pick up, go on to have several more children and regain a zest for life that might easily have floored others.

A. Scott Berg tells Lindbergh's life story very well and had voluminous correspondence at hand to help him.

Charles Lindbergh came up from nowhere to great fame and success. Each time I read a biography I can't help but wonder what might be if the environment and the times were suited to each individual. How many unknowns could rise to wonderful things if the mix of personality/temperament and the outside world were just right?
Profile Image for Kristi Fleming.
224 reviews30 followers
February 6, 2013
"Lindbergh" by Scott Berg is the first biography I've ever read. That being said I didn't know what to expect but felt propelled to read it after reading "The Aviator's Wife". There were substantial portions that I found very interesting but also sections that plainly said were downright boring. I was disappointed that the book lacked emotion and at times felt like just words drafted on a page rather than exposing the deep soul of a man.

There is so much more to this man than that of his transatlantic flight. He achieved so much more in his lifetime and yet for most of us we only knew him as the man and "The Spirit of St. Louis".

It is apparent that Lindbergh suffered from OCD, which contributed to his genius as well as his inability for personal intimacy for those that he loved. Lindbergh served this world well but at the expense of his family, so sad for the people who loved him.

After Charles' death the Times editorial said it best; "Charles Lindbergh was both the beneficiary and the victim of celebrity experienced by no other American in this century". The majority of his life was spent at the cruel hand of the press and changed the course of his life forever. It really made me think about the constant hounding celebrities have to endure each and every day and the truth or lies that are printed about them. Why is it that we feel the need to be notified of the most intimate details of their lives? Hmmm. Something to ponder.

Upon further research, Lindbergh had a relationship with three women, friends, in Germany and sired a total of seven children. It was disappointing to note that the relationships with these women and his other children were not discussed in his biography and how a man that professed the good character of a man could live a double life.
Profile Image for Gary Schroeder.
146 reviews12 followers
October 6, 2013
Say the name “Lindbergh” and it’s likely that one of two things immediately come to mind: that Charles Lindbergh was the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane or that he was the famous flier who’s baby was kidnapped in what was once known as the “crime of the century.” Both of these facts reflect what Charles Lindbergh is best remembered for today but for most of us, time has erased the significant, and in some cases, equally important details of this extraordinary American’s life.

In this fine (but necessarily incomplete--more on that later) biography by A. Scott Berg, the modern reader is transported back to the beginning of the 20th century when aviation was still in its infancy, hazardous and somewhat miraculous. Berg naturally begins with Lindy’s upbringing in Minnesota where the staunchly midwestern values imparted to him as a child and young man would form the principles of modesty, humbleness, practicality and stoicism that guided him for much of his adult life. A relatively poor student with middling academic talents, Lindbergh found his calling in mechanical interests that eventually led him to aviation. Never completing a college degree, he instead pursued a career as an air mail and stunt show pilot, eventually becoming enthralled with the challenge of the Orteig Prize offered for the first successful crossing of the Atlantic by plane.

The story of the Atlantic crossing by a solitary 25 year old pilot is, of course, dramatic and interesting in itself, but of greater significance to Lindbergh was the life-altering impact that the crossing would have on his life. Upon landing in Le Bourget, France, he was immediately subjected to a level of celebrity, stardom and public adoration that is even now, in the media-saturated 21st century, difficult to imagine. The relentless attention and hounding of the press that scrutinized his every move thereafter bred a deep resentment within in Lindbergh that would last for the rest of his life. Given the descriptions of media scum-baggery chronicled in the book, including completely fabricated stories, bogus quotations, stalking and worse, it’s easy enough to understand.

While this is a biography of Charles Lindbergh, it’s quite nearly a biography of his wife as well. Anne Morrow, daughter to a wealthy family whose patriarch was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico at the time of her marriage to Lindbergh features prominently throughout the book as his steadfast partner, first in glamorous flying adventures around the world and later as fellow parent to six children, one of whom would be killed during a botched kidnapping and ransom scheme. The media circus surrounding the trial of perpetrator Bruno Hauptmann would further cement Lindbergh’s disgust with the American press. Following the trial and unwilling to bear the continued pressures of living in a fish bowl of publicity, he and Anne would flee to England for several years to raise their second son.

Lindbergh remained a prominent figure in American public life long after his youthful conquest of the Atlantic, often to his detriment. His first public feud was with none other than president Franklin D. Roosevelt whom he took to task for summarily ending government contracts with private firms hired to deliver air mail throughout the country. FDR thought the contracts were won through shady, possibly illegal dealings. Lindbergh, in one of his earliest stands on principle, argued that not only were the contracts won fairly but that the use of inexperienced Army pilots in the place of veteran air mail carriers was the direct cause of pilot deaths, a claim well borne out by the alarming fatality statistics among the replacement pilots. Lindbergh would become persona non grata to FDR forever after.

The far more damaging public dispute would come in the form of the “Great Debate” in which Lindbergh took a firm stand for isolationism in the period preceding World War II. While it’s largely forgotten now, prior to the bombing of Pearl harbor by the Japanese, many Americans, chastened by the experience of World War I and eager to avoid further European adventures, supported the view that the war was not in the country’s best interests. Given his star power, Lindbergh became the public face of what was known as the “America First” movement. Not only did it further damage his standing with the U.S. administration (especially when he resigned his officer’s commission to protest what he saw as FDR’s war propaganda), it also significantly tarnished his previously heroic reputation with large swaths of the public (“from Jesus to Judas” as his wife would record). During this time, Lindbergh was especially damaged by his previous trip to Germany while working for the U.S. military to gain intelligence on the Luftwaffe, one of many such trips he would make to europe on behalf of the Army. While there, he received a medal from Hermann Goering and while the bestowment of medals in such diplomatic meetings was routine, this event would never be forgotten by the American people. Lindbergh further damaged himself by refusing to later return the medal.

Taken out of context, a few of his statements suggested to some that he supported the Nazi regime. While his true beliefs were largely misrepresented and misinterpreted in the press, he would be thought an anti-semitic racist for many years afterward. It’s clear from Berg’s detailed review of this period that Lindbergh, while strangely avoiding public criticism of the brutal aspects of Nazi government, was neither a supporter of fascism nor a Nazi-sympathizer. Rather, he appears to have been extremely naive about America’s ability to avoid involvement in another European war...and extremely stubborn about ever backing down from that position. When the Pearl Harbor attack eventually came, he threw his full backing behind the national war effort. Because of his earlier political position, he was unacceptable as an officer but he found other ways of serving, going so far as to “secretly” fly combat missions in the Pacific while officially categorized as an “observer.”

In his post-war life, his reputation was rehabilitated. Following FDR’s death, and as war fever subsided, he returned to the good graces of the federal government, becoming a valued consultant to the newly-formed Strategic Air Command. In fact, he was so trusted, that he had full security clearance including access to materials considered “Top Secret.”

In his later life, horrified by the prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, he grew wary of mankind’s relationship to technology. Once a pioneer of aviation and a staunch proponent of its advancement, he began to seriously question whether easy air travel and advanced technologies were advancing humanity’s cause or simply hastening its destruction. His personal awakening in the 1960s coincided with that of many of his countrymen. He would spend his later years on exotic expeditions to some of the mos tremote locations of the earth, meeting with tribes that time had forgotten and speaking out on their behalf with local governments who had the power to save their way of life. His pleas often resulted in tangible legislation that helped preserve isolated peoples and endangered animal species.

Now for the problem with this biography...the 800 pound gorilla between the pages. It was written in the late 90s just prior to the stunning revelations that Lindbergh, while described as an imperfect though caring father as well as a loving but absentee husband who suffered from a perpetual wanderlust, had actually fathered an astonishing seven additional children with three different German women during those periods of “wanderlust.” Berg, working only from what was publicly known about Lindbergh at the time, casts him as an imperfect but morally upstanding man with a firm commitment to high standards. While appearing to model them himself and demanding the same from those around him, we now know that Lindbergh was in fact an enormous hypocrite, shattering many of the theses of Berg’s otherwise excellent book. How can these two Charles Lindberghs be reconciled? Only a future biography can help us answer that question.
Profile Image for Steve.
268 reviews
September 4, 2023
Thirty-three hours, thirty minutes, thirty seconds. Mention that time span to the average man or woman on the street. I’m guessing most of them would not have a clue what you’re talking about. The average American would not know that is how long it took Charles Lindbergh to single-handedly pilot the Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field, New Jersey across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris, France. While that historic May 20, 1927 solo flight may still be mentioned in some American history books, I dare say few texts allow the reader to know the man behind the legend. A. Scott Berg changed all that when he published this 628-page expose of all things Lindbergh in 1998.

Lindbergh’s ground-breaking fete occupies only a portion of chapter five and all of chapters six and seven in this massive biography. While the New York to Paris trip helped to revolutionize commercial air travel forever, as author Berg points out, Lindbergh “could never have predicted the unprecedented global response to his arrival” in France. The new technology of radio, telephones and radiographs that “could transmit images and voices around the world within seconds . . . found its first superstar” in the form of an “unusually good-looking, young aviator.” Berg fully documents here how Lindbergh became “the most photographed man in the world” in his time. You could say the innocent-looking Minnesota farm boy helped to create the modern-day paparazzi.

As Berg reports, “more than the pressures of fame---the omnipresence of the media and the masses---drove Lindbergh to more interior pursuits. Indirectly, his marriage had as much to do with his shifting aviation, as he put it, ‘from a primary to a secondary interest’---as he embarked on an intellectual journey into the realm of biology.” For this reviewer, that little factoid was one of many surprises contained in these pages. For example, did you know that “one of (Lindberg’s) greatest services to his country proved to be in helping launch the space program?” As Berg writes, Lindbergh was “the man most responsible for securing the funding that underwrote the research of Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the inventor of the modern rocket.” Did you know that eventually Lindbergh “turned his back on aviation and fought to protect the environment?” Did you know that Lindbergh “rededicated his life to rescuing nearly extinct animals and to preserving wilderness areas?” Did you know that “for years (Lindbergh) performed medical research that would make organ transplants possible?” Did you know that Lindbergh, a college dropout, “made extraordinary archaeological and anthropological discoveries?”

On the negative side of Lindbergh’s public ledger: Berg documents here how his involvement with the anti-World War II group, America First tainted the aviation pioneer as one who was “wrong-headed at best and traitorous at worst.” His prior association and admiration for pre-war Nazi Germany and his alleged anti-Jewish public speeches helped make Lindbergh plummet in public opinion polls from Public Hero No.1 to Public Enemy No. 1. From hero to zero. As Lindbergh’s own wife Anne once noted, her husband “had become nothing less than the symbol of anti-Semitism in this country and looked to as the leader of it.”

Berg pulls no punches here in taking the shroud off a very private, reclusive historical icon. He goes into minute detail documenting the kidnapping and murder of Charles and Anne’s first-born son and the subsequent “trial of the century.” Berg covers Lindbergh’s rocky relationship with his son Scott. We learn of Anne’s three-year, extra marital affair with her doctor. What we don’t read here at all are details of Lindbergh’s own alleged “double life (which) emerged more than 30 years after he died and two years after his wife died in 2001.” In Berg’s 1998 Lindbergh portrait here there is no mention at all of the aviator’s alleged “countless affairs and numerous illegitimate children in Europe.” According to the Daily Mail Online, Lindbergh “was a serial adulterer who had fathered children by three different women.” However, Berg does admit that “for Anne (at least), their marriage had become something of a sham.” Gee. You think?

This reviewer agrees with the publishers of this monumental bio. “This is a most compelling story of a most significant life: the most private of public figures.” Here Berg reveals “Lindbergh the hero---and Lindbergh the man.”
Profile Image for Christopher.
734 reviews48 followers
April 8, 2017
There is no airman as famous as Charles Lindbergh and yet, aside from his flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris, very little is actually known or understood about his life. Mr. Berg does much to rectify this in this wonderful biography bringing a warmth and compassion to his subject that he never enjoyed from the press at the height of his popularity.

Mr. Berg starts this biography by tracing Lindbergh's family roots back to Sweden and by the end of the first part Lindbergh has crossed the Atlantic. The second part deals with his fame, his marriage to Anne Morrow, the kidnapping of their first child, the trial for the accused kidnapper and murderer, and the resulting media bonanza afterwards. The third part deals with Lindbergh's self-imposed exile in Europe, his work with the America First committee to keep America out of World War II, and his war record test flying planes and fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific. The final part deals with Lindbergh's later blooming interest in writing, his interest in wildlife and aboriginal populations in Africa and the Philippines, and, finally, his death from cancer in Hawaii. All the while Mr. Berg brings a genuine warmth and understanding of his principal subject as well as those close to him. In these pages, Mr. Lindbergh is not just the brave pilot who made the first non-stop trip across the Atlantic, but also the Renaissance man who pioneered artificial organs, rockets that would propel man towards the stars, and the technical expert whose imprint on the design of airports and commercial airlines would bring passenger airlines to the country and the world not long after his famous flight. Indeed, Lindbergh's fingerprints are on nearly every great invention in medicine and air travel from the first half of the Twentieth century.

At the same time, Mr. Berg also gives readers an intimate view of Lindbergh's wife, Anne, who would love him to his dying days, but whose mildly autocratic and cold-hearted ways would not make it easy for her to love him. Mr. Berg notes that she had at least one extramarital affair and possibly a second one during their long marriage. Lindbergh may even have had one of his own later in life, although Mr. Berg does not seem to think so. He gives critical appraisal Anne's writings remarking that she was one of the great published diarists of the century. In a quiet way, Anne was just as accomplished and Charles.

Yet this book does have a few flaws. For one, Mr. Berg seems to pull back from fully criticizing Lindbergh's America First speeches as anti-Semitic. Perhaps Lindbergh's were a form of diet anti-Semitism, but that doesn't make them any less excusable. And for all the attention Mr. Berg pours into Anne as character in this biography, I find it curious that he did not even write an afterword about the rest of her life even though she died five years before the publication of this biography. Also, despite the fact that Charles and Anne had six kids together, aside from their births, you would never really know they were even there. Much of the writings about Lindbergh's relationship with his children is relegated to the fourth part of this book instead of being a critical component to the narrative, as if they were an afterthought to the author.

Overall though, this is an excellent biography and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the most famous pilot's life and legacy.
Profile Image for Jerry-Book.
308 reviews6 followers
February 4, 2016
America's hero, Charles Lindbergh. His solo flight from New York was a real miracle. Flying through fog with primitive instruments was a real challenge as was fighting sleep. The kidnapping and death of his first-born was a real tragedy. Fortunately, he and Anne went on to have many other children. I was fascinated by his role in the America First Party and his isolationism. I did not quite understand why he was anti-Jewish and why he bought the Nazi line that all Jews were Communist. In one pre-war speech he said: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their [the Jews] large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." After all Guggenheim was one of his early backers. He was of course impressed by the German War Machine when he toured Germany in 1936 and 1938. He thought probably like many others that Germany was a bulwark against the Soviet Union. FDR could not stand him. He retaliated against Lindbergh by denying him any role in WW II despite his considerable talents. Nonetheless, he managed to aid the American cause through his industrial contacts. As a civilian technician in the South Pacific he was able to fly over 25 missions against the Japanese (while supposedly testing Corsairs and other fighters). Even though after the War, he was able to see at least one of the Nazi concentration camps he still did not seem to comprehend the total evil of the Nazis. Many Jews never forgave him for his America First role. In his after the war mission to Germany, he investigated the Nazi experiments in jets and rockets for America. He then went on to play a major role in American civil aviation and environmental causes. His relationship with his wife Anne is fully explored. She felt abandoned at times by his long absences but Berg does not cover Lindbergh's role in fathering seven illegitimate children. This secret life of Lindbergh was unknown by Lindbergh's 15 biographers including Berg. When she died in 2001, Lindbergh__s wife Anne Morrow never even suspected that her husband led a double life in Europe. The letters his three lovers sent him in the United States were addressed to post-office boxes that he changed on a regular basis. Not one single love letter written by the three women to Lindbergh has been found, whereas his entire love correspondence to Brigitte has been preserved. These mistresses may explain Lindbergh's constant absences. DNA confirmed Lindbergh's paternity in 2003. Stranger still was the fact Lindbergh believed in eugenics, another Nazi idea, but two of his mistresses were disabled. Berg thought his constant absenteeism from Anne was due to his wanderlust. The author who has written about Lindbegh's secret life theorizes it may have been a side effect of the kidnapping. Apparently, the legitimate children (6) have had a family reunion with the illegimate (7) children. Berg's book is very readable and a deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1998.
Profile Image for David Czuba.
107 reviews7 followers
May 14, 2022
A. Scott Berg has scoured perhaps every article written by or about Charles A. Lindbergh, one of the 20th century’s most popular, yet also misunderstood and derided, characters. Berg tries to source an explanation for the instantaneous, near-vertical, world-trotting trajectory Lindbergh took after his solo trans-Atlantic air passage. Given Lindbergh’s spotty and lackluster academic record, the only accounting we have for his ascent is the draw of flight itself. Berg provides the airy, yet precise, breadth of coverage, giving the reader the evidence of what it was that was capable of exciting Lindbergh’s inner fire, a drive that excited and exasperated his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, until the aviator’s last breath. Described as indefatigable, Lindbergh left a voluminous legacy of ironies. He was a proponent of aviation that circumscribed the planet, who then rallied to protect its environment and wildlife he saw increasingly endangered by human encroachment. He was a celibate until marriage and kept harsh views of procreative relationships with undesirable people, especially among his children, and yet cavorted in secret with women outside his marriage, siring several children. Indeed, this fact wasn’t discovered until a few years after the death of his wife, who herself had at least one affair, and one other awakening through the pilot/writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. As it happens with larger-than-life biographies, Berg’s tries to fit events chronologically, but it only avails for a time, say until 1948, after which Lindbergh’s life scatters with the constant Brownian motion of his movement. Berg does lend us the tender side of his subject, a man fraught with responsibilities met with endless lists and militarism that drove his kids away from him, and brought them together toward his death. Perhaps the man’s most cogent legacy is his unapologetic prescience and warnings of Russian and Chinese influence, which he viewed as extremely negative and unwelcome compared to the technical precision and elevated vision of pre-WWII Germany. The book, sprinkled throughout with brilliant wording and corrected misinformation, never pretends that Lindbergh wasn’t the heroic figure the world was looking for, and found to despise when spouting his views. Berg might take Lindbergh from the pedestal, as the flier himself always did, but it’s not difficult to put him back up there, like a fallen statuette, as Lindbergh, picking it up off the floor and dusting it off before returning it to the shelf, certainly would have.
Profile Image for Dirk Langeveld.
Author 1 book1 follower
March 16, 2022
A well-done biography on a tricky subject. Charles Lindbergh was never far from the public eye after his groundbreaking transatlantic flight in 1927, dominating the headlines again after the kidnapping and murder of his first son as well as the years leading up to World War II as a leading voice of the America First movement. A. Scott Berg must be commended for what must have been a massive undertaking to distill the thousands of diaries, personal papers, news reports, and other sources into a weighty but not overwhelming account, which often reads at a brisk pace.

Lindbergh was both lionized and demonized in his lifetime, but Berg avoids these poles through a convincing portrayal of his personal qualities as well as his shortcomings. He also gives the account a vividly human touch through its heavy reliance on diary entries to showcase the Lindberghs' emotions during pivotal events.

The book came out a few years before the discovery of Lindbergh's secret families in Germany, which unfortunately means it is missing a key part of his story. However, Berg has done a stellar job with the material he had, creating a first-rate biography in the process.
Profile Image for Sarah Finch.
83 reviews33 followers
January 1, 2015
I read this for the first time nine years ago, and it was every bit as compelling the second time around. Few biography subjects are more maddening to read about than Lindbergh -- the emotionally reserved, dangerously isolationist, undeniably thrilling man who "went from Jesus to Judas in fifteen years" and never understood (or wanted to understand) why people condemned him. A great book. But the figure who emerges as more complex and intriguing than the titular subject is Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who Berg is smart enough to recognize is every bit as worthy a subject as her husband.
23 reviews1 follower
February 1, 2016
Great, unflinching account of a unique man. Berg writes beautifully of Lindbergh's achievements but is unafraid to apply a critical and cold eye to his wrongheaded moments. A stunning account of a deeply brilliant and flawed man.

Berg's account - nine years in the making - is exhaustive and painstakingly researched. I was never once bored nor felt that Berg was gushing over his subject.
Profile Image for Dora.
117 reviews
March 20, 2017
Extremely well written. The book kept my interest from the first page until the last. Lindbergh lived such a varied life and the access the writer was granted by the family truly shed light on not only Lindbergh himself but his friends, family and most intimately, his wife.
Profile Image for Stella Zawistowski.
24 reviews4 followers
November 8, 2019
The friend who recommended this to me said, "This is a LIFE." And it is! Problematic as some of Lindbergh's views may have been, there's no denying that his was a fascinating story. I couldn't put this down.
Profile Image for Glynn.
314 reviews26 followers
April 23, 2017
This is a long book but well worth the effort reading it. It is very detailed about the life of the man Lindbergh who became this country’s first superstar, hounded by paparazzi. I knew a little about Lindbergh (his flight across the Atlantic, the kidnapping of his baby and subsequent trial) but not all the amazing things that the author meticulously details. A. Scott Berg really does a great job in revealing a man who tried his best to keep a lot of his life private. An eye opening account of a very colorful character during a fast changing time in the history of America.
Profile Image for Dan Walker.
276 reviews15 followers
May 25, 2018
Wow, a book about an honest-to-goodness real American hero, warts and all, which is a rare thing today when heroes are mass-produced and slickly PC. And while being the first to fly solo from NY to Paris may not have been that spectacular an accomplishment (competitors broke that distance record just weeks later), Lindbergh displayed the drive and engineering skills (and luck) necessary to do the job first. So give the man his due.

And whether we today credit that accomplishment or not is beside the point - people back then DID recognize it and instantly made Lindbergh the most popular global celebrity the world had ever seen. Why? I'm not sure the author really explains why. I'm guessing that WWI beat world optimism so low that ANYTHING positive made people jubilant. Strange how today's celebrities and politicians, with their hordes of handlers and publicists, fail to come anywhere close.

But he did have his warts, and, apparently handling his own publicity, occasionally those showed through. So let's get it on the table: Lindbergh was, by our standards, anti-Semitic. Get over it. So was everyone else - by our standards. Reading the book, I'm convinced Lindbergh would never have approved of Hitler's actions towards Jews, and this at a time when America's highest political leaders actively took steps that resulted in the deaths of Jews at the hands of Hitler. Don't believe me? Google "voyage of the damned." Yeah, that story never gets much air time because it's so contradictory of the US's collective WWII myth.

But that's why today I don't believe we look back on Lindbergh as a genuine American hero. No, I'm afraid lesser men found it expedient to try and destroy Lindbergh because he was, um, right about WWII. And unfortunately Lindbergh was an easy target. He was targeted on several ideas, which I will attempt to refute:

1) Both he and his wife (this is as much a book about her, and justifiably so) admitted post-war that they were too sympathetic towards Hitler. Again, so were a great many other people of the day.
2) Lindbergh accepted a medal from the Nazis. Of course, it was in the presence of FDR's hand-picked ambassador, but that factoid is ignored.
3) Lindbergh held frankly strange beliefs about eugenics, similar to Nazi "super race" ideas. But I think it's because both the Nazis and Lindbergh got their ideas from the same source: such ideas are a natural spin-off of Darwinism. Neither Hitler nor Lindbergh got their ideas on their own - neither was that creative in that area.

But WHY would someone try to take down America's greatest living hero? Simple: FDR needed to destroy the man who could almost single-handedly stop him from getting involved in WWII (even though FDR disingenuously campaigned on a promise to keep us out). Yes, I know, the myth about all the good we did in WWII is a juggernaut, accepted as truth more readily than the Ten Commandments. Well, there is a minority report. And that report is going to get more air time as time moves on, I believe.

So while Lindbergh may have been wrong about Hitler, he was RIGHT about WWII. And that is why FDR had to "clip that young man's wings," in his own words. What was he right about? 1) Germany wanted to focus on Russia, not Western Europe 2) opposing Germany would leave Europe prostrate before Stalin. Right on both accounts. Dead right. So right that Lindbergh should be considered a prophet, like Jeremiah, not some sort of Aryan Hitler-supporter. Come to think of it, the accepted narrative on Lindbergh would be exactly how the Bible would read about Jeremiah if his enemies had been able to write it.

But, if you're dead-set on criticizing Lindbergh, here you go: later in life he turned into a tree-hugger who idolized the "noble savage." So ironic, isn't it? As best I can tell your average leftist utterly abhors Lindbergh, and yet he probably did more for the modern cause of environmentalism than anyone on the planet, then or now. Just goes to show that no matter what you do, you can't make some people happy.

But this is where I part ways with Lindbergh. He seemed convinced that people should be left to live in caves. Literally. That somehow they were better off there than in the modern world. But this is the conceit of every wealthy person. Somehow the people that can afford to live the furthest from nature are convinced that everyone else should be forced to go back to nature. This is willful blindness. Sorry, there's a reason why Lindbergh discovered a small group of people still living in caves as they had for centuries? millennia? It's because child mortality is astronomical. Seems that severing the umbilical cord with a piece of bamboo is tantamount to execution when you do not understand the concept of bacteria. So no, color me unimpressed with Lindbergh's ideas re: rejecting the modern world.

So, read the book. Form an INFORMED opinion about Lindbergh. If nothing else, the story of flying across the Atlantic AND the murder of his infant son and the subsequent trial, are utterly enthralling. It truly was the crime (and trial) of the century. And while you're at it, give a real American hero a break.
Profile Image for Stephan Benzkofer.
Author 2 books14 followers
July 28, 2019
Lindbergh is a remarkable achievement because A. Scott Berg seamlessly merges two biographies in one, revealing the complex relationship of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. After reading this biography, it is hard to imagine getting the full picture of either person without the access to diaries and papers that Berg enjoyed with the permission of the Lindbergh family.

Charles Lindbergh was an accomplished aviator, airline pioneer and executive, medical researcher, statesman, author, and environmentalist, and a major figure in what is called the American Century. Lindbergh is a fascinating journey through three-quarters of that century.

But Charles Lindbergh was also an ass.

He wasn't a great father or husband. He was emotionally absent for most of his life. And he was physically absent for great lengths of times traveling the globe. But those periods were remembered by the family as being free of the tension of having him home.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a celebrated author who endured a disturbing amount of abuse, neglect, and bad behavior from her famous husband. Their relationship is a fascinating secondary plot that runs throughout the book.

Berg writes about Lindbergh's historic flight from New York to Paris in 1927 and the baby's kidnapping in 1932 with riveting, clear prose.

One issue that drew me to this biography was the controversy over Lindbergh's views and actions before World War II with the America First committee and isolationism, and Berg writes extensively about it, relating the key trips, diary items, and speeches from this period to explain as best as possible how this beloved hero landed solidly on the wrong side of history. The reader gets the feeling that Berg may be constrained by his allegiance to Anne Morrow Lindbergh and the Lindbergh family in trying to paint this issue in as positive a light as possible, though I think he lays out the facts fairly and clearly. What he doesn't do is summarize and evaluate as much as he does in the other parts of the book, where he assesses Lindbergh's achievements and gives him his due.

So putting the best light possible on it, Lindbergh was a fierce isolationist and patriot who massively underestimated Hitler's evil intent in trying to exterminate the Jews. He foresaw and feared — correctly — the evil of Stalin and Soviet Union's domination of Europe, so much so that he weighed Hitler as the lesser of two evils. He wanted the U.S. to build up its own defenses and stay out of Europe's and Asia's wars.

But in his writings and speeches, he clearly expressed a basic anti-semitism common to the age that saw Jews as a separate race, foreigners who needed to be watched and regulated, particularly in immigration.

His infamous Des Moines speech was ill-considered, horribly written, and blatantly anti-semitic, despite his protests to the contrary. And the fact he could never admit that speaks to his contrary, self-centered, self-assured, stubborn, and ornery nature. Of course, it was these same traits that got him across the Atlantic in 1927, helped him survive his first son's violent murder, and drove him on a life of globe-trotting adventures.

When he became an avid environmentalist and wildlife conservationist in the 1960s, Lindbergh wrote something along the lines of the need to fight against the extinction of any more species. And he was properly and roundly rebuked by a newspaper columnist who asked, where the hell was this Lindbergh when Hitler was murdering millions of Jews?

Both Charles and Anne wrote about their admiration for Hitler before the war, based on tours of Germany and the rest of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, where they saw a transcendent Germany sloughing off the Great Depression in stark opposition to the social troubles and debates that roiled France, England, and other countries.

But many of these writings came after Nazi persecution of German Jews had already begun, another example of how they preferred a strong leader's actions at the expense of a minority group's rights. And Lindbergh's earlier embrace of eugenics — but only the good parts, he basically claimed — didn't help his case in this biography.

Charles Lindbergh was a confounding person who made major contributions to aviation, science, ecology, and conservation. He was far from perfect — or even middling — on a number of occasions and in numerous ways that had real consequences, and that makes Lindbergh a fascinating biography and a insightful perspective on the American Century.

P.S. I almost forgot: Don't listen to this audiobook. Narrator Lloyd James nearly ruins this biography. He repeatedly pauses at the worst time in the sentence or paragraph, breaking a single thought or description into two or more parts, causing confusion and misinterpretation. Brutal. The worst I've ever heard.
Profile Image for Rick Burin.
279 reviews63 followers
October 27, 2020
One of the truly extraordinary American lives is turned into one of the driest books imaginable, with Berg apparently labouring under the misapprehension that the role of a biographer is to exhaustively chronicle where someone travelled, and when. Somehow this won him the Pulitzer.

Lindbergh’s story is one of triumph, tragedy and disgrace. His legendary solo flight from New York to Paris made him the most celebrated person alive. Four years later, his infant son was kidnapped, and later discovered dead, with the subsequent trial predictably degenerating into a media circus. Lindbergh and his wife, the author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, fled the country as a result, only returning in an attempt to steer America from its course of involvement in World War Two, an intervention that made them pariahs. A partial redemption would ultimately follow, with Lindbergh (like one Leni Riefenstahl) becoming obsessed with the natural world.

Though he achieved great things – or at least one great thing, which captured the imagination of the world – Lindbergh comes across as an austere, pompous and ultimately dull figure. It’s difficult to tell if he really was inherently uninteresting, or if the biographer simply can’t get close to him. The fact that Berg failed to uncover his subject’s three secret families in Germany (revealed by a rival book) suggests that it may be the latter.

The problem is also one of authorisation, and of sources. This one was approved by Lindbergh’s family, with involvement from Anne, and Berg was the first biographer to receive access to the couple’s personal papers. As such, he clearly feels an obligation to draw not just primarily but almost obsessively from these documents. That means reams of material from Lindbergh’s largely lifeless diaries, laborious lists drawn from his itineraries, and even several breakdowns of mail he hadn’t even opened.

Though the end notes list a fair number of interviewees, these are barely quoted from (contrast with Robert Caro’s magisterial LBJ books, which are essentially an oral history), and when they are it’s usually a chat with a family member. So while Berg is critical of Lindbergh’s treatment of his wife, and his imperfect performance as a father – safe ground when working closely with the family – he is astonishingly lenient on Lindbergh as a public figure. It’s not that he doesn’t acknowledge the case against – that Lindbergh had a messiah complex, was an anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathiser – but that he hurries past it, before lengthily laying out the pedantic mitigation. At times, there is a valid case to be made; at others, you sense that Berg would be fairly easy prey for the wallet inspector. He's also boxed into a corner: this isn't so much a study as a defence, and that severely limits where the book can go, and what impact it can have.

There are sections that grip – particularly the investigation and prosecution of ‘The Crime of the Century’ – and some interesting details here and there (two years before his legendary New York to Paris flight, Lindbergh’s activities in the air included carrying a judge to a sky wedding, claiming to cure deafness by spinning the hard of hearing repeatedly in the air, and allowing a man to urinate on his hometown). But it’s a compromised, turgid and stolid book, with the most moving story, in which an aged Lindbergh quietly alludes to his defining act, relegated to an end note on p607.
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