Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Dates Covered: 1820 - 1940
ISBN: 0679438084
HH Rating:

Our Take

Ron Chernow may be our best current biographer. That he can write anything compelling on top of the millions of pages written about the nineteenth century's most famous tycoon is in itself amazing. That he has produced a work of such fluidity and expert precision may be nothing short of miraculous. Titan is more compelling than most works of fiction; a rarity in history books, it is a real page-turner. Like David McCullough's definitive biography of Harry Truman, Titan stands out as a book with a real sense of the human features of its subject, as well as a careful attention to historical context. Stories bind the whole work together and make it flow as if it were a novel.

Most readers will share the same fate as Rockefeller's biographer: near the end of the story they will be so enamored of the man's story that they will decide that many of the features of the twentieth century are due entirely to the imagination and munificence of John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller may have ponied up the money, but J.P. Morgan engineered the rescue of the stock market. John was certainly a pioneer in establishing the legitimacy of institutionalized innovation at Standard Oil, but Edison beat him to the punch by a few decades. Despite these few over-eager slips in the final chapters of the book, Chernow's work stands out as a well-balanced work in a sea of tedious biographies. It is rare to see such expert use of primary material -- the educated reader will marvel at the agility with which Chernow handles volumes of personal correspondance, interview transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles.

History House feels it is a bit obvious to mention the timeliness of a good Rockefeller biography in the most recent Gilded Age, with its cast of Gates, Greenspan and the dot com billionaires. But we've never been ones for subtlety. Buy this book and set aside a week to read it. You won't put it down.

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