Lindbergh by Berg, A. Scott (Andrew Scott) - c1998

Place_Pub: New York: G. P. Putnam's, c1998. First Printing. Hardcover. very good/very good. 24 cm, 628 pages, illus., references, index, front DJ flap price clipped. Andrew Scott Berg (born December 4, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer. After graduating from Princeton University in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis on editor Maxwell Perkins into a full-length biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978), which won a National Book Award. His second book Goldwyn: A Biography was published in 1989.Berg's third book Lindbergh, a highly anticipated biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh was published in 1998, becoming a New York Times Best Seller, and winning the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. In 2003 Berg published Kate Remembered, a biography-cum-memoir about his friendship with actress Katharine Hepburn that received mixed reviews. His biography of Woodrow Wilson was published in 2013. Berg also wrote the story for Making Love (1982), a controversial film that was the first major studio drama to address the subjects of gay love, closeted marriages, and coming out. This Pulitzer Prize-winning book is easily the most comprehensive and authoritative account of Lindbergh's life. It includes hitherto unavailable material from the Lindbergh archives. Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 August 26, 1974), nicknamed Slim, Lucky Lindy, and The Lone Eagle, was an American aviator, author, inventor, military officer, explorer, and social activist. In 1927, at the age of 25, Lindbergh emerged from the virtual obscurity of a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo nonstop flight from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France. He flew the distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km) in a single-seat, single-engine, purpose-built Ryan monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh was the 19th person to make a Transatlantic flight, the first being the Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown from Newfoundland in 1919, but Lindbergh's flight was almost twice the distance. The record-setting flight took 33 1 2 hours. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, his infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century". It was described by journalist H. L. Mencken as "the biggest story since the resurrection" and prompted Congress to make kidnapping a federal crime and give the Federal Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction over such cases. Before the United States formally entered World War II, some accused Lindbergh of being a fascist sympathizer. Lindbergh subsequently resigned his commission as a colonel in the United States Army Air Forces in April 1941 after being publicly rebuked by President Roosevelt for his isolationist views. Nevertheless, Lindbergh publicly supported the war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant, though President Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission. In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, inventor, and environmentalist.