East To The Dawn: The Life Of Amelia Earhart - Hardcover

Butler, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201311445 ISBN 13: 9780201311440

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 1997

Synopsis

The myths surrounding the life and legacy of Amelia Earhart run the gamut from the mundane to the ridiculous. Since her disappearance in 1937, people have questioned not only her actual death, but many aspects of her life, including the nature of the relationship with her husband, the flamboyant publishing magnate George Palmer Putnam, and even her very competency as a flier. Now, with East to the Dawn , Susan Butler offers the most comprehensive account to date of Earhart's extraordinary life—and finally sets the record straight.The image we have of Amelia Earhart today—a tousle-haired, androgynous flier clad in shirt, silk scarf, leather jacket, and goggles—is only one of her many personas, most of which have been lost to us through the years. Many of her accomplishments have been obscured by a growing obsession with the mystery of her disappearance. As well, Earhart herself was a master of putting on faces: a woman constantly striving for success and personal freedom in the 1920s and '30s, she could scarcely afford to let on when something was troubling her. Through years of research, however, as well as interviews with many of the surviving people who knew Amelia, Susan Butler has recreated a remarkably vivid and multi-faceted portrait of this enigmatic figure. As a result, readers experience Amelia in all her permutations: not just as a pilot, but also as an educator, a social worker, a lecturer, a businesswoman, and a tireless promoter of women's rights; we experience a remarkably energetic and enterprising woman who succeeded in life beyond her wildest dreams, while never losing sight of her beginnings; and we experience a woman who battled incredible odds to achieve her fame, while ensuring that her success would secure a path for women after her.Some odds, are insurmountable, however, and this fact became painfully evident on the last leg of Earhart's round-the-world- flight. In the chapters describing the last flight, Butler deals with and dispels some of the most pernicious myths about Amelia—for instance, that her disappearance was planned as part of an espionage mission against the Japanese. Instead, she offers a less romantic but ultimately tragic scenario: that the Electra's limited navigational equipment was unable to find Howland Island—a piece of land the size of the Cleveland Airport—in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and a great flier died at sea.Butler masterfully renders this portrait of the first lady of aviation in a story filled with drama, pathos, and humor. East to the Dawn is a landmark biography, and will be the definitive life of Amelia Earhart for years to come.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Of the dozen or so books (mostly wild fantasies)that I have read about Amelia Earhart, Susan Butler's is the only one which re-creates accurately that singular woman whom my father was in love with, as indeed was I, aged ten, when the lady vanished.
Gore Vidal
 

About the Author:

SUSAN BUTLER, whose mother was a member of Amelia Earhart s flying organization, the Ninety-Nines, is a journalist with an M.A. degree from Columbia University whose work has appeared in the New York Times and Barron s, among other publications. She spent ten years writing East to the Dawn, which was her first book. She lives in Lake Wales, Florida.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0201311445
• ISBN 13: 9780201311440
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 512