Eddie Rickenbacker epitomized the American spirit in the twentieth century. Daring, skilled, and rugged--moving fast and defying death--he drove race cars in the early days of the automobile, then flew canvas-over-wooden-frame aeroplanes in the Great War, downing twenty-six enemy flyers and emerging at war's end as the nation's ace of aces. Only Gen. John J. Black Jack Pershing and the much-decorated Sgt. Alvin York emerged from that struggle as...