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. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation’s history. Branded the Octopus by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America. 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. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist. Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. Now Ron Chernow, a National Book Award-winning biographer, gives us a detailed and insightful history of the mogul. 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.

Titan the life of john d rockefeller sr