From one of America's most acclaimed biographers, here at last is the definitive life of one of the most legendary, controversial, and enigmatic figures in American history - Charles A. Lindbergh.

National Book Award winner A. Scott Berg is the first and only writer to have been given unrestricted access to the massive Lindbergh archives - more than two thousand boxes of personal papers, including reams of unpublished letters and diaries - and to be allowed to freely interview Lindbergh's friends, colleagues, and family members, including his children and his widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The result is a brilliant biography that clarifies a life long blurred by myth and half-truth.

From the moment he landed in Paris on May 21, 1927, Lindbergh found himself thrust upon an odyssey for which he was ill prepared - the first modern media superstar, defied and demonized many times over in a single lifetime. Berg casts dramatic new light on Lindbergh's childhood; his astonishing flight; the kidnapping of his son, which has been called "The Crime of the Century;" Lindbergh's fascination with Hitler's Germany; and his unsung work in his later years.

In all, 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. This is at once Lindbergh the hero and Lindbergh the man.