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Titan

The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Audiobook
3 of 8 copies available
3 of 8 copies available

John D. Rockefeller, Sr., history's first billionaire and the patriarch of America's most famous dynasty, is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Now Ron Chernow, a National Book Award–winning biographer, gives us a detailed and insightful history of the mogul. Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller's exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist.

Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.

Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.

While providing abundant evidence of Rockefeller's misdeeds, Chernow discards the stereotype of the cold-blooded monster to sketch an unforgettably human portrait of a quirky, eccentric original. A devout Baptist and temperance advocate, Rockefeller gave money more generously than anyone before him—his chosen philanthropies included the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, and what is today Rockefeller University. Titan presents a finely nuanced portrait of a fascinating, complex man, synthesizing his public and private lives and disclosing numerous family scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes that have never before come to light.

John D. Rockefeller's story captures a pivotal moment in American history, documenting the dramatic post–Civil War shift from small business to the rise of giant corporations that irrevocably transformed the nation. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J. P. Morgan, William James, Henry Clay Frick, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, Titan turns Rockefeller's life into a vivid tapestry of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is Ron Chernow's signal triumph that he writes this monumental saga with all the sweep, drama, and insight that this giant subject deserves.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Most people think of the founder of Standard Oil as a cold, heartless capitalist who cared for nothing but money and destroying the competition. This biography acknowledges Rockefeller's dark side but also tries to show him as a man whose generosity still shapes our world. Narrator Grover Gardner's deep, resonant voice is a wonderful accompaniment to the story of this Gilded Age robber baron. Gardner's tone and inflection bring to mind the mahogany-paneled clubs that were the refuges of the nineteenth-century corporate elite, and he especially excels when reading quotes from the leaders who lived during that era. It's an elite performance without a hint of elitism, and, as Rockefeller himself surely would say, merits the investment in time and money. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This work is well written, well read, but most apparent of all--it is lengthy. In 25 cassettes, we learn much detail about the life--as well as the influences on this life--and the times of one of America's most famous (or perhaps infamous) business tycoons. Projecting strong baritone voice, Edward Holland reads is clearly at an even pace. Despite the book's length, one would expect the reader to sound tired at some point, but he never does. Holland's impersonation of Rockefeller is the highlight of his reading. M.L.C. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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