Customer Reviews

War Within & Without: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1939-1944 (Harvest Book)

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I really enjoyed this book, as it offers Anne Morrow Lindbergh's perspective on her life and her husband's life during the tumultuous pre-WWII years. Charles Lindbergh took his family to live in England after the trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of Charles and Anne's first son. But even after the trial, the Lindberghs were harassed and they feared for their son, Jon's, safety. In England, for the first time in their married life, they had a home of their own and privacy. They also travelled extensively and this book tells of their impressions of Hitler's Germany, among other places. To read now what Anne and Charles thought of Germany is enlightening, especially when considering Charles Lindbergh's public speeches trying to keep America out of the war. The Lindberghs moved from England to an island off the coast of France for a time and Anne's descriptions of living in such an environment with an infant and unpredictable conditions is fascinating. Anne also writes about many well-known people of the period, such as Alexis Carrel, Lady Astor, Gertrude Stein, Hitler, and others. I would highly recommend this book.

War Within and Without is not an easy book to read. It must have been an even more difficult book to publish. Lindbergh gets points for exposing herself and this period in her life to public scrutiny.

This book contains her journals and letters from the period 1939-1944. Although many things happen during this time, the focus of the book is on her husband and his involvement with the isolationist America First Committee. It is by turns painful and almost offensive to read the young Lindbergh as she attempts to defend her husband for his opposition to US war participation. She points out correctly in the introduction that they did not then have the benefit of historical hindsight. Still, it is difficult not to cringe as you read about Charles and his decision to criticize the Jews for pushing the US to enter the war. Anne herself during that period is tarnished by the charge of fascism as she publishes her book The Wave which tries to make sense of the changes in Europe.

These journals are an invaluable historical window into those conflicted pre-war years in the US. The national reluctance to act has now been almost forgotten, and it is a rare person who is willing to admit that they had taken a stance against US participation. I doubt that there are many texts like this one.

Although Lindbergh wrote many books which were not journals, her style of writing is ideally suited to the journal form. Her prose is as lovely here as it is in anything that she ever published. The descriptions of her love for Charles or the death of a beloved family dog ground the political aspect of the book and are powerful enough to bring tears to the eyes. The fact that I so often disagreed with her politically only made her more human-- and ultimately made the book more moving to read.

Highly recommended for virtually any reader interested in history, essays, or journal writing.

This book interested me primarily because I am a life-story writer - and I knew Anne Morrow Lindbergh primarily as the wife of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. I knew she had a child kidnapped and murdered, but beyond that, I knew nothing about her.

This book opened my eyes to the beautiful woman she is - the poet, the lyrical parent, the mother-author-woman-lover-of-life that allowed us to see the private, family side of a world famous marriage.

Politically, the Lindberghs went through a lot of heat during this era, which we get to witness, front-and-center. She doesn't sugar coat things, she speaks openly and plainly.

I especially enjoyed hearing about St. Exupery - and the relationship they cultivated, and AML's love for Rainer Rilke made me love her even more, as I love him, too.

Reading this one volume makes me hungry for more of her words - and after reading this I also see her daughter, Anne published a memoir as well. I look forward to reading more.

Read the introduction to get the gist of this book. The rest is sometimes painful, sometimes silly, often defensive and always very self-centered. I had to give up and will keep the book as reference, which is where diaries and letters belong.

Lindbergh admits that very little of the source material actually made it to the published diaries. One hopes that now, following her departure, the family will release the unedited, full diaries. Many questions remain--what really happened in the death of her first child? What happened after the published diaries end? How did this educated, wonderful woman really feel about her uneducated, doctrinaire hero-husband? How did she feel about her later affair?

Despite their brevity, the diaries provide satisfying reward to readers, including some humor. Lindbergh complains about not having time to write, which seems odd to the reader who realizes she has a mass of servants taking care of all the daily details.