First published 2025
Amelia Earhart walked into George Putnam's office in 1928 as a social worker who flew planes as a hobby. Putnam, heir to a publishing empire, needed the right woman for a secret Atlantic crossing. Their professional partnership quickly became personal, launching a decade-long marriage that would transform Earhart into an American icon. Shapiro reveals how Putnam, known as the "PT Barnum of publishing," used his promotional genius to build Earhart's fame while pushing her toward increasingly dangerous stunts to sell books. Behind her modest public image, Earhart was fiercely ambitious and competitive, a lifelong feminist willing to take extraordinary risks. Their modern partnership supported her aviation dreams but also fed a growing recklessness that influenced her final, fatal flight. Using newly discovered audio interviews and previously untapped sources, Shapiro strips away the myths surrounding Earhart to reveal a complex woman driven by authentic aspirations and shaped by the compromises required to succeed in her era.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, american, american-history
Vibes: compelling, dramatic, intimate, revelatory, thought-provoking
Tropes: ambition-and-sacrifice, myth-versus-reality, power-couple
Setting: Atlantic Ocean, United States
Period: 1920s, 1930s, 20th century
512 pages · Hardcover · Viking
Content warnings: death