Lindbergh

Rating:
Summary: The Whole Story
Review: Mr.A. Scott Berg had the class to write a true biography of an american icon. The truth will hurt those reader's who want to further indoctrinate their mind with information regarding Lindbergh's so called Nazi connection or other conspiracy theory...it's a biography of not an ordinary man...but of a visionary.

Rating:
Summary: Nine years for what?
Review: I think a little skepticism is in order with biographies authorized by a deceased subject's family -- especially a subject as controversial as Charles Lindbergh. Subsequently, I didn't figure to find an objective analysis of Lindbergh's life and nor did I find one. Even more disturbing was Berg's apologetic tone in explaining Lindbergh's outright antisemitism and less than passing interest in eugenics. Why make sorry excuses for a dead man? America doesn't need another Colombus; we don't need another contrived American hero. Oops! I almost forgot: it doesn't pay to spend 9 years writing a family-authorized biography which would upset the way America looks at itself.

Rating:
Summary: Bamboozle of the Century
Review: Why did Steven Spielberg pay multi- millions for this book when he could have had Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax by Stephen Monier and Gregory Ahlgren? That brilliant 1993 appraisal of the "great hero" and the part he played in bamboozling the police into believing that a kidnapper murdered his child is so plausible that this 280 - page book puts Berg's 2,000 boxes and 625 pages to shame. Anyone who has read even a single book on the life of Charles Lindbergh already knows what Berg took a decade to "discover" - that the man was a disgrace. After 10 years of privileged access to 2,000 cartons of Lindbergh papers Berg claims to have found absolutely nothing to prove Charles Lindbergh was an "active" anti Semite. Unfortunately, Berg did not take his wise grandmother's advice when she warned him not to resurrect the life of this unrepentant anti-Semite. What, I wonder, will the director of Schindler's List do with this pitifully warped biography of a man who ought to remain in disgrace? If Lindbergh chose to go to his grave accepting responsibility for his antisocial views what gives Berg and Spielberg the right to resurrect the fallen hero's reputation by making excuses for him? The defiant Lindbergh didn't want excuses from anyone. He was always right and everyone else was always wrong. After 10 years of research Berg also claims to have found nothing to prove Bruno Richard Hauptmann innocent of the Lindbergh baby's death. It is mind-boggling how Berg comes up with the most nonsensical explanations for Lindbergh's bizarre behavior, which never resembled that of a father anxious to retrieve his son. In an example of the sloppiest research I have ever come across, regarding the night of March 1, 1932, Berg has Lindy telling the police that his son was kidnapped between 7:30 and 10 PM and that he is wearing a one-piece sleeping suit without explaining to any thoughtful reader how the father of the missing child could have known what his son was wearing when he had not seen him for several days nor had he looked in on him after returning home. In his attempt to resurrect a hero Berg never notices, nor does he question. Instead of wiping stardust from his brain , he has unwittingly become an accomplice in the mother of all bamboozles - Charles Lindbergh's Hoax. Gregory Ahlgren, a Manchester NH defense attorney, and Stephen Monier, Goffstown NH Police Chief, have offered the most plausible explanation for Lindbergh's bizarre behavior - something Berg never does. But Ahlgren and Monier are not journalists or movie makers so what could they possibly know about crimes? As for Spielberg there is a certain bridge I would like to sell him.

Rating:
Summary: This book gives the reader a complete look into his life.
Review: Scott Berg's book brings together a large amount of American history and tells a very intresting and fascinating story about one of American's beloved heroes. In his book he brings to the attention of the reader the side of Lindbergh 's life that was not told to the public but is one that is very intresting to the follower of history. In closing, this book has now set the standard for generations to come to know and to understand Charles Lindbergh.

Rating:
Summary: Lindbergh: Misunderstood Hero.
Review: The American public misunderstood Lindberg in his pre-war warnings about Nazi Germany. I am glad to see someone at last put the record somewhat straight. Berg does an excellent job of helping us to understand Lindberg's alienation from the public. Nothing was sacred where the press was concerned and the press forced him to withdraw from public life. Had he attempted to refute all the lies and misconceptions about him that the media propagated, he would have spent his life doing that and nothing else. Berg explains how and why this happened.

I met this most charming and noble gentleman when I was Chairman of the Society of Experimental Test Pilot's Banquet at which he graciously accepted an Honorary Fellowship in 1969. His extraordinary achievements only began when he flew the Atlantic. He continued to serve his country, mankind and aviation all his life. I am profoundly grateful for the brief chat and handshake in that September and I commend Scott Berg for his fine work. I think he captured the essence of Charles A. Lindbergh. His book explains and clarifies what I have always felt about this misunderstood hero.

Rating:
Summary: Berg weak on kidnap analysis
Review: Having eagerly awaited the release of A. Scott Berg's "Lindbergh" it is difficult to articulate the depth of disappointment I felt upon finally reading it. Not only does he fluff over The Lone Eagle's rampant anti-Semitism but the authorized nature of the biography apparently caused him to gloss over the circumstances surrounding the tragic disappearance and death of his oldest son. Lindbergh claimed to find a ransom note and Berg states, without any documentation or source whatsoever, that Lindbergh found it in the company of his wife and Betty Gow, the nursemaid. Where this comes from is as much a mystery as the case itself, but it appears he may have simply tracked Jim Fisher's (The Lindbergh Case) sloppy research. At the trial Lindbergh himself testified that he could not remember when he found the note, whether it was when he was in the nursery with Anne and Betty upon originally seeing the empty crib or whether it was later, when he went back into the nursery alone. That Lindbergh had such a memory lapse concerning a momentous event in his life is simply not credible. Do any of us old enough not remember where we were when we learned that JFK had been shot? Fortunately for historians, the memories of the other two principals are more credible. Anne testified that she never saw the note that evening in her one entry into the nursery while Betty Gow testified that Lindbergh went back up to the nursery alone-hours after the child's disappearance-and called her upstairs to show her the note he had just discovered. This was despite the fact that the note was where others had previously searched and found nothing. The case was thereafter treated as a kidnapping. More recent books which have focused on the crime (i.e. Ahlgren & Monier's "Crime of the Century" and Noel Behn's "Lindbergh: The Crime") have both seriously challenged the theory that the child was kidnapped, and have raised the ugly possibility of child abuse and cover-up. Yet Berg does not even discuss these possibilities, despite his apparent concession that Lindbergh may have been an abusive parent. Wouldn't a biographer want to know if his subject was also a killer? Although the kidnapping was just one aspect of Lindbergh's life Berg's treatment of it, and his lack of any investigative challenge, call into question the integrity of the whole book. But of course in an authorized biography......

Rating:
Summary: The author is too starry-eyed to be taken seriously.
Review: While his research may seem exhaustive, it is unfortunately one-sided. Read the evidence in "Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax" by Ahlgren & Monier and compare. I trust the perspectives of crime experts on the kidnapping facts over a biographer enamored with his subject. Berg's may be a "good" read for some, but some of it borders on pure fiction, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Would have been twice as good at half its length
Review: Berg's book is slow going because of the writer's tedious, ponderous style. Some judicious editing would have made it a lot better read. He takes pages to say what could be written in a paragraph. The subject is interesting but the writer doesn't offer any real new insight into the enigmatic man.

Rating:
Summary: Very Fine Biography
Review: Wonderful tratment of the subject, with some minor flaws that a lttle historic study would bring up. Mentions Lindbergh's Congrssional Medel of Honor was a first for a peace time feat, when Byd and Bennett received the award for the North Pole Flight of 1926, a year before the flight. As others were awarded to other explorers both before and after the flight. Some other facts are it looks liked assumed rather than varified, Noted some details of the flight differ from the National Areonautics Association offical record. Even handed treatment of Lindbergh, a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely splendid!
Review: This is a magisterial biography. I am amazed at how Berg keeps the narrative bubbling merrily although his pot is chock-full of minute detail. I believe that his assessment of Lindbergh's anti-Semitism is both scrupulous and generous, taking into consideration the much looser standards of the 1930s about ethnic prejudice. He makes it clear that Lindbergh's human flaws do not obscure his astonishing number of genuine achievements. A giant of our century has found the biographer he deserves.