A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose
genius and force of will created modern capitalism.
Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central,
creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius "Commodore"
Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during
George Washington's presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of
the nation's largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad
empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the
Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn
enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president
of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. We see
Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the
Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation--in
fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than
perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live
in today.
In "The First Tycoon," Stiles offers the first complete,
authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive
account of the Commodore's personal life. It is a sweeping,
fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man.
Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian
Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for
being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business
models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the
respect of New York's social elite. And he was a father who
struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving
yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with
contacting the dead.
"The First Tycoon" is the exhilarating story of a man and a nation
maturing together: the powerful account of a man whose life was as
epic and complex as American history itself.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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