Short description
From the award-winning author of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War comes the first full, authoritative look at the life of Cornelius Vanderbilt--the complex and combative man whose genius and force of will gave birth to modern capitalism.
Long description
From the award-winning author of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War --the first full, authoritative life of the complex and combative man whose genius and force of will gave birth to modern capitalism. Born to humble circumstances on Staten Island in 1794, Cornelius Vanderbilt--the Commodore--amassed one of the greatest fortunes ever. The First Tycoon gives us a sweeping account of his rise from boatman to steamboat entrepreneur, from builder of the nation's largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. We see him help ignite the Gold Rush; reshape Manhattan (he built the original Grand Central railroad station); lead the hunt for Confederate warships during the Civil War; rescue Wall Street from panics with his personal fortune--and pioneer the giant corporation as we know it today. T. J. Stiles brings to life the unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York's social elite; the husband by turns abusive and loving; the father who struggled with contradictory feelings for a gambling-addicted son; the old man who constructed a dynasty that reigned over the new American aristocracy for decades to come. And we see clearly the first corporate tycoon who not only launched the Gilded Age but also created the financial mind-set that still defines our society and helped to move America into an age of modernity. Meticulously researched, written with stunning insight and narrative richness, The First Tycoon is a monumental work of biography.
Review
T.J. Stiles has given us a balanced and absorbing biography of this colorful and often ruthless entrepreneur, the first of the 'robber barons' who transformed the American economy in the nineteenth century.
-James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
At long last a biography worthy of the Commodore, meticulously researched, superbly written, and filled with original insights.
-Maury Klein, author of The Life and Legend of Jay Gould
T.J. Stiles writes with the magisterial sweep of a great historian and the keen psychological insight of a great biographer. The First Tycoon is the fullest, most perceptive chronicle ever written of the life and times of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the original American robber baron and the epitome of unfettered, winner-take-all capitalism. With panache and admirable ease, Stiles maps the financial and political currents on which Vanderbilt buccaneered and shows that it was Vanderbilt, more than anyone else, who enabled business to evolve into Big Business.
-Patricia O'Toole, author of When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House
The First Tycoon is a brilliant exposition of the life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and the entrepreneurial environment that he shaped. Readers will look at Grand Central Station and much else in American life with fresh eyes.
-Joyce Appleby, author of The Restless Revolution: A History of Capitalism