Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. - book reviews

National Review, April 26, 1993 by Jeffrey Hart

Joyce Milton is probably best known to NR readers as the co-author of The Rosenberg File, the definitive study of the spy case. In Loss of Eden she writes alone, and with consistent brilliance, about Robert Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Charles Lindbergh is deservedly a hero for his 1927 flight, but this book refutes my own view that he got a bad rap from FDR.

Lindbergh was not just a "non-interventionist" during the period immediately before World War II. He loathed the sloppiness of democracy and the prevailing yellow journalism. The brutal kidnapping of his son reinforced his negative feelings about America. Despite his assumption of expert knowledge, he was taken in by the Nazis and admired their alleged efficiency. It is clear from this book that Lindbergh had an engineer's mind, and was more at home with engines and aerodynamics than with the more complicated issues of history and personal relations. Thus his marriage - to the sensitive and introspective Anne Morrow, who was in awe of him, but more reflective and with a tendency to mysticism - was not altogether happy. The book also contains much rich information about the culture of the time, especially the anti-war America First movement. Joyce Milton has written a splendid piece of biography and cultural history. P.S.: Hauptmann did it.