Though I read and enjoyed Chernow’s biographies of Washington, Hamilton and Grant, I found this biography of Rockefeller his best. Titan is a magnificent biography-balanced, revelatory, elegantly written. 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. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists-and an utter enigma.ĭrawing 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. 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. Rockefeller, Sr.-the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. Titan – From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D.
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