Lourdes > Biographies > The Immortalists
The Immortalists
Reference : 9780060528164
Author : David Friedman
Number of page : 338
Edition : Harper Perennial
Release date : 2007-11-01
The immortalists. Charles Lindebergh, Dr Alexis Carrel, and their daring quest to live forever.
A. Scott Berg's masterful biography Lindbergh (1998) encompassed a relationship that author Friedman expands in full: the Lone Eagle's friendship with Alexis Carrel (1873–1944). Carrel received a 1912 Nobel Prize for a surgical procedure essential to performing organ transplants and, in 1930, received visitor Charles Lindbergh in his New York laboratory. In retrospect, this appears to be the first of Lindbergh's flights from fame, and Friedman follows the deepening influence Carrel had on Lindbergh in the 1930s, ultimately arriving at Lindbergh's controversially diffident attitude toward the Nazi regime in Germany (though the Frenchman Carrel disliked it). Thorough in his narrative, astute in his appraisals, Friedman underscores the haven and scientific validation that Carrel provided for Lindbergh, who constructed special pumps for Carrel. Friedman weighs as well the effects on Lindbergh of Carrel's quasi-Darwinist ruminations about eugenics. Laying bare Lindbergh's faults, Friedman also displays his ability to change and his depth while giving the once-renowned Carrel his due. A boon for fans of aviation and medical history.
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