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Special Interest Books
Availability: This title usually ships within
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Hardcover, 832 pages
Published by Random House
Publication date: May 1998
Dimensions (in inches): 1.89 x 9.57 x 6.70
ISBN: 0679438084
Text Excerpt :
Read the first chapter of this title.
Amazon.com:
Ron Chernow, whose previous books have taken on the Morgan and Warburg financial empires,
now turns his attention to the patriarch of the Rockefeller dynasty. John D. was history's
first recorded billionaire and one of the most controversial public figures in America at
the turn of the 20th century. Standard Oil--which he always referred to as the result of
financial "cooperation," never as a "cartel" or a
"monopoly"--controlled at its peak nearly 90 percent of the United States oil
industry. Rockefeller drew sharp criticism, as well as the attention of federal probes,
for business practices like underpricing his competitors out of the market and bribing
politicians to secure his dominant market share.
While Chernow amply catalogs Rockefeller's misdeeds, he also
presents the tycoon's human side. Making use of voluminous business correspondence, as
well as rare transcripts of interviews conducted when Rockefeller was in his late 70s and
early 80s, Chernow is able to present his subject's perspective on his own past,
re-creating a figure who has come down to us as cold and unfeeling as a shrewd, dryly
humorous man who had no inner misgivings about reconciling his devout religious
convictions with his fiscal acquisitiveness. The story of John D. Rockefeller Sr. is,
in many ways, the story of America between the Civil War and the First World War, and
Chernow has told that story in magnificently fascinating depth and style.
The New York Times Book Review,
Jack Beatty :
This book is a triumph of the art of biography. Unflaggingly interesting, it brings John
D. Rockerfeller Sr. (1839-1937) to life through a sustained narrative portraiture of the
large-scale 19th-century kind.
The New Yorker, John Cassidy :
...prodigiously researched ... Chernow surveys almost everything that is already known
about his subject ... and also unearths some original material.
Wall Street Journal, Maury Klein :
Past authors have usually cast Rockefeller's life as some sort of morality play. To
admirers he was a poster child for the Protestant ethic, with its aura of pious
acquisitiveness, indomitable righteousness and relentless energy. To detractors he was a
malign, unsleeping engine of greed bent on crushing all who opposed him. Rockefeller's
career is a minefield of controversies and complexities through which Mr. Chernow makes
his way with admirable balance and judgment. His most important contribution is to place
Rockefeller's achievements in the context of the closest examination yet made of a bizarre
and improbable life.
Amazon Customer Comments
jcona@nais.com from Long
Island, New York , 05/17/98, rating=9:
Excellent as history or as larger-than-life novel.
Finally, a book large enough in scope to cover the complete history of American
industrialization - from the post-Civil War boom to modern corporate finance. It is about
time someone realized that the history of that whole period can be written as the
biography of one remarkable man - Rockefeller. Love that period, love this man - or at
least find his (public) life endlessly fascinating. And Chernow brings it all out
seamlessly and with attention to detail. A fine history, biography and novel.
A reader from New York,
NY , 05/16/98, rating=8:
Excellent research, curious perspective
The New York Times Book Review praises the "moral intelligence" of Ron Chernow's
book on John D. Rockefeller. I have a different reaction. The Baptist minister William
Sloan Coffin has argued that damaging people is inevitable (since people's interests
conflict) and not necessarily evil, but to do damage and call it good is the quintessence
of evil. Reading Chernow's book, that phrase kept ringing through my ears. I also found
myself remembering Andrew Delbanco's book on Satan, which argues that the traditional
image of Satan is today's image of the successful capitalist. Rockefeller exemplifies the
terrible arrogance of the self-righteous: His self-image of his goodness licenses his
evil. Chernow's groundbreaking book offers much to admire, but "moral
intelligence"? I suppose one can see Chernow's "balanced" presentation as
some sort of wisdom--unless one believes that, on balance, Rockefeller did a great deal
more evil than kindness. Chernow does not make the case that Rockefeller, warts and all,
was a good guy. His "balance" seems to me "a priori," a studied
professional stance rather than an apt and well-argued appraisal of the facts of
Rockefeller's life. I found myself wondering why Chernow was so generally admiring of
Chernow. I finished the book more disgusted with Rockefeller than before I knew this much
about him.
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