Now in paperback, the #1 New York Times bestselling chronicle of
the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty, from CNN anchor
and journalist Anderson Cooper and historian and novelist Katherine
Howe. One of the Washington Post's Notable Works of Nonfiction When
eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his
father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined
that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a
pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping
and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in
America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after
his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully
heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the
Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever
more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last
Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer
estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and
namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to
the tycoon who started it all. Now, the Commodore’s
great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian
Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and
their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the
ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the
Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous
with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from
the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing
rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of
Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New
York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of
an American dynasty unlike any other. Written with a unique
insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially
American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly
captures.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
