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The race to make the first nonstop flight between the New York and Paris attracted some of the most famous and seasoned aviators of the day, yet it was the young and lesser known Charles Lindbergh who won the $25,000 Orteig Prize in 1927 for his history-making solo flight in the Spirit of St. Louis. Drawing on many previously overlooked sources, Bak offers a fresh look at the personalities that made up this epic air race – a deadly competition that culminated in one of the twentieth century's most thrilling personal achievements and turned Charles Lindbergh into the first international hero of the modern age.
- Examines the extraordinary life and cultural impact of Charles Lindbergh, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, and his legendary trans-Atlantic flight that captured the world's imagination
- Explores the romance of flying during aviation's Golden Age of the 1920s, the enduring mystique of the aviator, and rapid technological advances that made for a paradigm shift in human perception of the world
- Filled with colorful characters from early aviation history, including Charles Nungesser, Igor Sikorsky, René Fonck, Richard Byrd, and Paul Tarascon
History and the imagination take flight in this gripping account of high-flying adventure, in which a group of courageous men tested the both limits of technology and the power of nature in pursuit of one of mankind's boldest dreams.
"Is there room for yet another spin on the tired old propeller of the Spirit of St. Louis? Yes indeed, if Richard Bak is turning the prop. In The Big Jump, a brisk history, Mr. Bak puts Lindbergh's flight in the context of 'the Great Atlantic Air Race'.... It was in large part the pilot's determined lack of flair that made him such a hero when he succeeded -- an outcome that, for all the times it has been told, Mr. Bak has imbued again with excitement and pleasure."
—Dan Ford, Wall Street Journal, July 23/24, 2011
"The story of the Spirit of St. Louis is well known but seldom told as well."
—David Shribman, Boston Globe, August 11, 2011
"Richard Bak has an astonishing gift for making events of the distant past seem as if they happened just yesterday. Now he has put that gift to use in a superb rediscovery of aviation’s greatest adventure story: the deadly race to connect New York and Paris by air."
—James Tobin, National Book Critics Circle Award winner for Ernie Pyle's War and the author of To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight