East to the Dawn : The Life of Amelia Earhart

Rating:
Summary: research over style
Review: East to the Dawn is very well-researched, going to many primary sources for information, but not very well-written. There are many cases in which I was aggravated by Butler's choice of words or annoying editorializing.

However, any book about Amelia Earhart which features so many of her own words cannot possibly fail. Her letters, remarks, interviews burst out of the text full of personality, wit, and intelligence. It is no less than shocking how completely contemporary seems, and how inspiring she could be. We can only hope that in the future there are other perfect marriages of a remarkable person and remarkable circumstance, for Amelia Earhart and the early days of aviation were made for each other. Though somewhat clumsily, this book gets this across and for that it is very much worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: research over style
Review: East to the Dawn is very well-researched, going to many primary sources for information, but not very well-written. There are many cases in which I was aggravated by Butler's choice of words or annoying editorializing.

However, any book about Amelia Earhart which features so many of her own words cannot possibly fail. Her letters, remarks, interviews burst out of the text full of personality, wit, and intelligence. It is no less than shocking how completely contemporary seems, and how inspiring she could be. We can only hope that in the future there are other perfect marriages of a remarkable person and remarkable circumstance, for Amelia Earhart and the early days of aviation were made for each other. Though somewhat clumsily, this book gets this across and for that it is very much worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: informative and absorbing
Review: EAST TO THE DAWN not only gives the reader an incredibly detailed account of Amelia Earhart's life, but its presentation allows one to have a clear sense of the period, places and people of her life. From childhood in Kansas at the turn of the century, through an exciting adulthood which took her all over the world, you will feel that you are almost there. It is both informative and absorbing.

Rating:
Summary: Omission of Relevant Facts a Problem
Review: I appreciate the author's honoring Amelia Earhart, someone I, along with millions of people, admire and hold in high esteem. Regardless, I believe it is a biographer's purpose to present as accurate a presentation of someone as the evidence on record provides. The lack thereof of a few important points and this author's omitting relevant facts, that Amelia was NOT considered, among the top women pilots of her day, to be the best woman pilot by any means and most importantly, that Amelia and her celebrity rose specifically due to her business partner and publicity agent George Palmer Putnam. Putnam had been looking for a talented female pilot to ride the Friendship flight that initially made Amelia famous. From thereon, it was publicity stunts arranged by Putnam and his huge publicity machine that enabled Amelia to take off in more than her plane. It was also the onset of the new film industry that enabled Amelia to get so much worldwide attention, through news reels on the earliest movie screens, all arranged by Putnam.

Whatever Amelia's lacking of extensive training as a pilot (as noted by interviews of the top female pilot who knew Amelia) had also been overshadowed by her other talents and tireless contributions in other areas. It was Amelia's drive, talent, skills and her decision to continue with Putnam as her publicity agent, who she eventually married, that made her the best known woman pilot, not her being the best female pilot in the world as this biographer states in clear error.

More seriously, this author fails to comprehend the severity or examine the final flight and how disaster could have been averted, in claiming in the forward that Amelia was a woman of great judgement. Here, I disagree since it is obvious to anyone that the FIRST attempt at a round-the-world flight that ended in a crash, should have been an indicator more flight training was needed to continue, rather than just repairs to the plane. The author fails to address how unnecessary it was for Amelia to surrender her life to being a legend in her last fatal flight, when she began cutting corners in preparation, all due to pressure from her husband George Palmer Putnam.

I do understand the author's wanting to honor the memory of Amelia, to recover from what was a form of failure of the way her final flight ended, I just don't feel the certain omissions of relevant facts is the nature of what a biography should do. Nor do I appreciate this biographer's attempt to disspell any links with Amelia possibly being a feminist lesbian ahead of her time, such as stated in the forward in which the author strongly disputes Amelia rejecting men. Two men were in fact, pressuring Amelia on a continual basis to overcome her natural tendency to reject them as life long partners in marriage. This biographer, wanting to disspell any rumors of the possibility of Amelia being a feminist lesbian, remains in denial of these facts of continual rejection of men, and of their pressuring Amelia up to her final fateful flight.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed This Book!
Review: I grew up hearing bits and pieces about Amelia Earhart. There was always the slight inference that she may have been a lesbian and the stories about her possible capture by the Japanese. I found EAST TO THE DAWN illuminating and informative. The author makes Amelia much more of a feminist and political person than I had ever imagined. For example, I did not know about her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. But Amelia's friendship with Nancy Cook and Lorena Hitchock and involvment in the Val Kil project made me think that there may have been some validity to the rumors about her life style. It's also interesting how much the government did for her on her flights. The possible capture by the Japanese seems to me looking back in retrospect that it could be a form of very suttle anti Japanese propaganda. One of the previous reviewers commented that EAST TO THE DAWN finds no fault with Amelia - she was perfect in every way. Thinking about the book in retrospect, there is a lot of validity to that statement. But all in all the book gives a good view of women and their roles in society in the 1920's and 30's. It also give a whole new side of Amelia. As a result of this book I want to read more about Amelia. The author's conclusion that Amelia became bigger in death than she may have been in life is also valid but Amelia is one of those American icons that will live on and on because she died so young and under strange circumstances.

Rating:
Summary: A new veiw of Amelia
Review: I grew up hearing bits and pieces about Amelia Earhart. There was always the slight inference that she may have been a lesbian and the stories about her possible capture by the Japanese. I found EAST TO THE DAWN illuminating and informative. The author makes Amelia much more of a feminist and political person than I had ever imagined. For example, I did not know about her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. But Amelia's friendship with Nancy Cook and Lorena Hitchock and involvment in the Val Kil project made me think that there may have been some validity to the rumors about her life style. It's also interesting how much the government did for her on her flights. The possible capture by the Japanese seems to me looking back in retrospect that it could be a form of very suttle anti Japanese propaganda. One of the previous reviewers commented that EAST TO THE DAWN finds no fault with Amelia - she was perfect in every way. Thinking about the book in retrospect, there is a lot of validity to that statement. But all in all the book gives a good view of women and their roles in society in the 1920's and 30's. It also give a whole new side of Amelia. As a result of this book I want to read more about Amelia. The author's conclusion that Amelia became bigger in death than she may have been in life is also valid but Amelia is one of those American icons that will live on and on because she died so young and under strange circumstances.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent descriptions of her flights; short on criticism.
Review: Ms. Butler's book, written more or less to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Earhart's birth and the 60th of her final flight, is a hagiography, almost without critical balance. Earhart's very real accomplishments as social pioneer and aviator are fully documented, but all too fulsomely presented. Apparently everything she did was brilliant, every man she attracted was a genius, every record-breaking flight a triumph. The author (descended from a flying contemporary of Amelia Earhart) claims to have spent ten years researching and writing this book. She would have done well to include more of the flip side of Amelia Earhart: the sometime publicity hound who spent more time in front of microphones and cameras instead of practicing her flying skills for the Bendix air races, for example. The book shows more competence in its accounts of the navigation and mechanical problems of early flyers, and here the account of Earhart's final flight is illuminating. There is a concise account of the farrago of radio navigation problems that led to the loss of the Lockheed 10 Electra and its crew. Also, the author rightly debunks the old theories of the flight's having been a mission to spy on the Japanese in the Pacific. After reading this book, you will know a lot more about a person of remarkable courage and class, who should be (and unfortunately is not) a model for the women's movement of today. The book does not treat her complexity with the depth it deserves, but the author's warmth and dedication to her subject are commendable.

Rating:
Summary: Makes a familiar icon new and fascinating again.
Review: Susan Butler has combined faultless research with first-rate writing to bring Amelia Earhart into sharp focus. The book reads as though she knew Earhart, liked her, and understood what made her soar. One of the best biographies I have read in a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed This Book!
Review: This was a very interesting and informative book.
I feel like it really let me know Amelia.
Only thing I did not like about it was that the begining was
a little slow. A little too much time spent on her ancestors.