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From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.—the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. In the course of his nearly 98 years, Rockefeller was known as both a rapacious robber baron, whose Standard Oil Company rode roughshod over an industry, and a philanthropist who donated money lavishly to universities and medical centers. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists—and an utter enigma.
Drawing on unprecedented access to Rockefeller’s private papers, Chernow reconstructs his subjects’ troubled origins (his father was a swindler and a bigamist) and his single-minded pursuit of wealth. But he also uncovers the profound religiosity that drove him “to give all I could”; his devotion to his father; and the wry sense of humor that made him the country’s most colorful codger. Titan is a magnificent biography—balanced, revelatory, elegantly written.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 18, 2007 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
- ISBN: 9780307429773
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780307429773
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780307429773
- File size: 14584 KB
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Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Additional Information
Page breaks included
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from May 4, 1998
Nearly 98 at his death in 1937, Rockefeller had retired in 1896 to be "the Lord's fiduciary" and gave his money away. Chernow, biographer of the Warburgs and the Morgans, has his finest subject in Rockefeller, and is able to furnish anecdotes galore from his encyclopedic research in the family archives. The earliest entrepreneur in the family was John D.'s bigamist father, "Devil Bill," an itinerant mountebank and phony physician who peddled spurious elixirs. After John D., the vast family foundations run by successor generations beginning with John D. Jr., a figure of granite respectability, altered the landscape of philanthropy, especially in education and medicine. Although beset most of his life by supplicants, the elder Rockefeller invested shrewdly and used his profits benignly. The industrial magnate who pioneered the predatory multinational corporation is surrounded in Chernow's narrative by a memorable cast of friends, relatives, associates and enemies. Rather than the cunning, churchgoing hypocrite of legend who spent his Sundays piously but weekdays wrecking his rivals, Rockefeller emerges in Chernow's elegantly told biography as an enterprising monopolist who "regarded God as an ally, a sort of honorary shareholder of Standard Oil." Reducing the risk factor in competitive capitalism by reinventing the laws of supply and demand, Rockefeller amassed so much wealth that he had to reinvent the funding and management of benevolence. Despite the biography's length there are no dull pages. Illustrations not seen by PW. (May) FYI: A related spring title is Anne Rockefeller Roberts's The Rockefeller Family Estate Kykuit (Abbeville, $49.95 ISBN 0-7892-0220-0), with 275 photos by Mary Louise Pierson.
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