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Titan
- The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 35 hrs and 3 mins
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The House of Morgan
- An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- Written by: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.
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legendary book does not disappoint
- By Amazon Customer on 2018-03-28
Written by: Ron Chernow
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Andrew Carnegie
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The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.
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Amazing discovery
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All Against All is the story of the season our world changed from postwar to prewar again. It is about the power of bad ideas - exploring why, during a single winter, between November 1932 and April 1933, so much went so wrong. Historian Paul Jankowski reveals that it was collective mentalities and popular beliefs that drove this crucial period that sent nations on the path to war, as much as any rational calculus called "national interest".
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The First Tycoon
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Amazing story told very well.
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The Wealth of Nations
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The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words.
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a must!
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Barbarians at the Gate
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A number-one New York Times best seller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco. An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date 20 years after the famed deal.
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The House of Morgan
- An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- Written by: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.
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legendary book does not disappoint
- By Amazon Customer on 2018-03-28
Written by: Ron Chernow
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Andrew Carnegie
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- Length: 32 hrs and 40 mins
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The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.
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Amazing discovery
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All Against All
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The First Tycoon
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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.
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Amazing story told very well.
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The Wealth of Nations
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The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words.
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a must!
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Barbarians at the Gate
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A number-one New York Times best seller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco. An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date 20 years after the famed deal.
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The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge - a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker) - covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, listenable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history.
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Fantastic Book
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As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage.
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Well written but not the story I was hoping for
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The Rise and Fall of the Mammals has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
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Excellent Follow Up That Stands On It’s Own
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Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.
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Edifying
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
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Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
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The most extensive book I have ever listened too!
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In this magisterial book, Roy Jenkins' unparalleled command of the political history of Britain and his own high-level government experience combine in a narrative account of Churchill's astounding career that is unmatched in its shrewd insights, its unforgettable anecdotes, the clarity of its overarching themes, and the author's nuanced appreciation of his extraordinary subject.
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It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
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good book
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Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.
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Bad pronunciations
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Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.
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very long and great history but boring at times
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Understanding Power
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A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" ( The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.
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Truly essential Chomsky
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In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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Couldn’t finish it
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The Greatest
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In his own words, the heavyweight champion of the world pulls no punches as he chronicles the battles he faced in and out of the ring in this fascinating memoir edited by Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison. Growing up in the South, surrounded by racial bigotry and discrimination, Ali fought not just for a living, but also for respect and rewards far more precious than money or glory. He was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the BBC.
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timeless
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Publisher's Summary
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 30 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 19th and early 20th 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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What listeners say about Titan
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Andrea
- 2020-01-30
Thouroughly enjoyed every minute!!
Absolutely fascinating story through and through, the duality of his morality, business vs faith and at times their total contradictions. I found it extremely interesting how he came from nothing and when applying for his first job as a book keeper he was constantly rejected and kept focused and when he had applied to all businesses in town, simply started at the beginning of the list and re-applied until he got his foot in the door then walked through it and into history.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sean Arani
- 2018-10-20
Great book on a great man.
The only complaint I have is that it does not include much about the inner workings of Standard Oil and details of the thought processes behind some decisions made. It looks at it from a 20000ft distance angle.
Otherwise the book is great. Very informative on the man and the family too.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-08-12
A long life well chronicled
Did not expect to be.so engaged by the life of the premier robber baron, and was surprised by the contrasts of his life, particularly his strange grifting father and his own stern Baptist beliefs. Monopolist, robber baron, father of the integrated corporation, it did make.me.wonder about our own gilded age, and the tech monopolistic of our own time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robert Hoskins
- 2020-05-09
A very interesting read
On times and men who have gone before us. Their struggles and the evil some men might do. Its just eye opening,,,,
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1 person found this helpful
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- Raven W
- 2019-07-15
Excellent Story
A must read! The life of John D Rockefeller is extraordinary and the book was written so well it was hard to stop listening.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Stewart Walter Cattroll
- 2018-11-13
Incredible and inspirational
An incredible listen that will inspire anyone with a modicum of ambition. Rockefeller's life, as presented by Chernow, is a master class in how to get things done and is surprisingly full of adventure.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tom
- 2023-04-10
excellent
I listened to it immediately again after I finished it...it was so good. a must listen
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- Danielle G French
- 2023-04-06
Amazing story
I love this book and learned so much about history and about John Rockefeller highly recommend it
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- Doris
- 2023-04-01
Great narration of a very long book
Excellent narrator, kept me interested for the majority of the book with obvious exception when the book is giving to much data, numbers, etc.
The story keeps you entertained, overall a great biography that tries to be impartial and just tell the story.
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- Kindle Customer
- 2023-02-20
what a fascinating man and story
I was hooked through the whole story. John.D was a pretty impressive man and also a controversial man in the same respect. Would recommend 5/5
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- Rick
- 2013-11-04
He makes Bill Gates look like a Pauper!
This was a long, long read but I just can’t see how you’d get the whole story about the Rockefeller Empire by reading an abridged version. It was long, but well worth your time.
From the onset, John D Rockefeller was destined to be a financial giant. Choosing not to enlist in the union Army during the civil war he began building his empire in Cleveland with a small Oil refinery. As the demand for oil grew, and following several business savvy maneuvers he slowly built Standard Oil into the world’s largest oil company and he into one of the world’s richest men. Not without a few underhanded tactics which he would ignore, Standard Oil grew to colossal proportion until it was ultimately broken up by the US courts.
This was an excellent read and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to learn about Rockefeller, Standard Oil, his philanthropic endeavors, or how one of the largest corporations in the world became the greatest monopolies. The story is long and no detail is left out and it is well worth the time to learn how this very powerful, yet very complex family empire came to be.
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105 people found this helpful
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- martha
- 2013-12-17
WOW! What a fascinating story!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
YES! And I have, to anyone who will listen. This is a fascinating story of a man very few people know much about beyond his wealth. Chernow is both an excellent writer and a master of research. This is a long listen but it never bogs down. You will walk away having completely revised your understanding of Rockafeller. You may not like him any better but you will know him better.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Titan?
When I realized the origin of Spellman College in Atlanta, GA.
What about Grover Gardner’s performance did you like?
Everything, he is one of my favorite narrators. Knows when to emphasize and when to hold back, easy on the ears, good diction, pleasant tone.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The end. I was sorry it was over.
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67 people found this helpful
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- DGE 2020
- 2014-05-11
Powerful. Engaging. Inspirational.
After reading this book, here is a once sentence description of Rockefeller.
If Rockefeller was a modern day NFL football player he would be a all pro linebacker who blindsided quarterbacks and put them in the hospital then stepped off the field, went home and baked cookies for the neighborhood kids.
Weird, eh?
I recall my high school text books dedicated one or two paragraphs of one chapter to "The Robber Barons" and for some strange reason I just assumed that was sufficient to gather the gist of what they were about.
Wow, that a bad assumption.
The actual story of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. is so, so much more than a mere story of a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Chernow's detailed portrait of his life makes him come to life in a way that is vivid and stunning. I am amazed that he was able to reconstruct so much of this man's origins, motivations and feelings as his life unfolded on such a grand stage. What a well done piece of scholarship and what a well done narrative.
At no point in the this book do I feel like Chernow took a side. At some points I felt Rockefeller was a victim of the greed of others, he was taken advantage of and he had really tried to cultivate true goodness in his character. At other moments I was shocked as his aggression and just how hard he charged in his business.
The life and habits of this curious man are on full display. It made me want to take the best of him and make it myself while keeping the worst of him at bay.
The narration is masterful. No complaints there.
Hope you enjoy.
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66 people found this helpful
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- Matt
- 2014-05-29
A Great Listen - Fascinating and Entertaining
Found it hard to put this down. It's beautifully written and read. A very easy listen too.
The author tells a great story but is at pains to include important historical details. It's very detailed but well paced. I like the way the chapters are organised into different sections of Rockefeller's life.
Even though this was written in the 1990s the narrative style has a certain late 19th / early 20th century flavour to it. The reader's style works well with the words, he manages to evoke the age, steeping the listening experience in atmosphere.
I'd imagine years of painstaking research have gone into creating this book.
Last week I knew very little about Rockefeller. Now I know a lot about the man, his beginnings, how he built his fortune, his saintly, human, crooked and cunning sides, his mind boggling philanthropy and more besides.
We humans love to paint others as either one thing or the other, good or bad, saintly or evil. This is a great study how someone can have so many contrasting and contradictory sides to their character. I would have loved to have met Rockefeller, especially in his old age. He was an astoundingly, fine, cunning, complex and brilliant character.
On balance I'd say the book is quite sympathetic to Rockefeller, but that's not surprising. He was vilified from afar, but close up had a way of winning people over. The book does devote plenty of space to his misdeeds however, and lays responsibility firmly at his door for these.
Loved it!
I want to listen to more audio books like this.
Strongly recommended.
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46 people found this helpful
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- BVerité
- 2014-02-22
This is a Masterpiece!
I was not interested in the life of Rockefeller when I bought this. I got it truly bc of the reviews and the fact that it was one of the only Chernow books NOT narrated by Scott Brick. (Sorry I know lots like him, but I've gotten a little tired Scott brick.)
I knew about Roosevelt's trustbusting and Ida Tarbel's newspaper attacks, but not from the perspective of those who were victims of much scrutiny and hatred. Tarbel in particular went too far.
I sludged through first two or three hours, then I was hooked. I learned SO much about how big businesses worked back then. The most interesting part of book for me was the way the family charities evolved into serious organizations whose members won Nobel prizes for curing diseases and saving countless lives. Many will be surprised at the state of medicine in America before the Rockefeller Institute for scientific research in medicine. The charities are so numerous. I especially was impressed with his work to raise education in the south.
Chernow is an outstanding historian. He covers every aspect of every story. Good and bad. He creates both the savage business man and the well meaning family man. He shows us the humanity that was lost on so many others who abused him personally about his looks and his illness, they even attacked his family. I did feel sorry for the man at times!
Definitely interesting and beyond well-written. Great Performance by Grover Gardner!! As usual... (Why didn't he read George Washington????)
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- Darwin8u
- 2017-02-22
A Fascinating Biography of History's Richest Man
"Standard Oil had taught the American public an important but paradoxical lesson: Free markets, if left completely to their own devices, can wind up terribly unfree. Competitive capitalism did not exist in a state of nature but had to be defined or restrained by law."
- Ron Chernow, Titan
One of the great truths about America is the paradoxes built into it, almost from the beginning. It was the land of the free, but built largely on the backs of slaves. It has all the bunting of freedom, but often can act like an adolescent empire. Those same paradoxes are also found within American Capitalism AND some of America's greatest men. Rockefeller is one of those men, known for both good and evil, where it is very hard to write a biography without carrying into it A LOT of bias. Standard Oil, in some ways, is the perfect example of many of the virtues of capitalism (and the Protestant work ethic). It also contains within it, many of the vices.
Chernow is able to explore the life of Rockefeller without turning the book into a hagiography (Rockefeller paid for plenty of those) or Devil's dictionary (there were plenty of those too). He examines Rockefeller as a man, faults and brilliance combined. This isn't a perfect biography, but is definitely top shelf. It isn't even Chernow's best. I'd rank this one under Alexander Hamilton, but over Washington: A Life (Since I haven't read The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance or The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, I'll decide later where it fits among those two). The biggest weakness, in my opinion, of this biography was the end. Chernow wanted a cradle to grave biography and delivered it. I just feel he could have cut about 100 pages from the last 15 years of Rockefeller's life. The biography became a bit less compelling after the chapters on the Rockefeller Foundation. While I think his time in Florida, giving out dimes and nickels, needed a few lines -- it just wandered a bit at the end (thus my four stars, not five).
Some of what I loved the most from this book, however, were the bits about minor satellites to Rockefeller. I loved the discussions concerning such fascinating figures as Ida Tarbell (the Jane Mayer of the early 20th Century), Frederick T. Gates (who helped Rockefeller give his money away, and invest it later in his life), JR (a whole book can be written on the relationship between Rockefeller Sr & Rockefeller Jr), the Baptists (another whole book could be written on the relationship between the Rockefellers and religion), etc. These asides alone were worth the entire price of admission.
I kept thinking as I read this of Jane Mayer's book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. It was amazing how much power Rockefeller really had. It was also amazing at how bad both the Rockefellers and Standard Oil were at public relations and politics. It seems in some ways the Kochs have learned from the mistakes of previous billionaires, but it also seems like the more things change with oil, money, and politics - the more they stay the same.
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- Gerardo A Dada
- 2014-03-20
Long but engaging and enlightening
36 hours is quite long for an audiobook. And yes, at times it feels there are too many details on a topic that is not critical to the story. Still, the audiobook is always engaging and always interesting. I was not tempted to fast forward or skip.
On the contrary, I really enjoyed this book. It gives a surprisingly complete view of John D. Rockefeller, his context, his life, his legacy and his challenges. The book provides life lessons, a detailed view into the state of business, trade and even the culture of the earlier 1900s as well as a comprehensive account of JDR's life, business, struggles and personal achievements.
Worth spending 36 on it.
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- Behzad
- 2014-01-09
Very nice and interesting
If you could sum up Titan in three words, what would they be?
Enjoyed every minute
What does Grover Gardner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Reason I selected the book in first place was the Grover Gardner, he brings the story to life.
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- Wolfpacker
- 2015-07-22
Another Good Chernow Biography
I enjoyed this book as well as the Chernow biographies of Washington and Hamilton. Chernow always has an interesting and thorough approach to biography without making it too detailed or over praising the subject. The first half or more of the book that dealt with Standard Oil and Rockefeller was the most interesting part. The philanthropic portion of the later life was a little longer than I thought it needed to be. I did learn a lot about many of the charities that Rockefeller started and supported in the areas of medicine, education, and religious institutions. I felt the author had an evenhanded approach to the religious side of Rockefellar.
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- Roger
- 2015-01-18
Wonderful Bio on John D
I am currently researching many legendary businessman and had previously listened to "The Rockefellers" by Peter Collier & David Horowitz. "Titan" provides everything that "The Rockefellers" lacks (which is a ton). While one could view them as being complimentary, if you are to choose between the two, "Titan" is the one to go with, hands down. Highly recommended.
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