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Celebrated historian David Nasaw, whom The New York Times Book Review has called "a meticulous researcher and a cool analyst," brings new life to the story of one of America's most famous and successful businessmen and philanthropists---in what will prove to be the biography of the season.
Born of modest origins in Scotland in 1835, Andrew Carnegie is best known as the founder of Carnegie Steel. His rags to riches story has never been told as dramatically and vividly as in Nasaw's new biography. Carnegie, the son of an impoverished linen weaver, moved to Pittsburgh at the age of thirteen. The embodiment of the American dream, he pulled himself up from bobbin boy in a cotton factory to become the richest man in the world. He spent the rest of his life giving away the fortune he had accumulated and crusading for international peace. For all that he accomplished and came to represent to the American public--a wildly successful businessman and capitalist, a self-educated writer, peace activist, philanthropist, man of letters, lover of culture, and unabashed enthusiast for American democracy and capitalism--Carnegie has remained, to this day, an enigma.
Nasaw explains how Carnegie made his early fortune and what prompted him to give it all away, how he was drawn into the campaign first against American involvement in the Spanish-American War and then for international peace, and how he used his friendships with presidents and prime ministers to try to pull the world back from the brink of disaster.
With a trove of new material--unpublished chapters of Carnegie's Autobiography; personal letters between Carnegie and his future wife, Louise, and other family members; his prenuptial agreement; diaries of family and close friends; his applications for citizenship; his extensive correspondence with Henry Clay Frick; and dozens of private letters to and from presidents Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and British prime ministers Gladstone and Balfour, as well as friends Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, and Mark Twain--Nasaw brilliantly plumbs the core of this facinating and complex man, deftly placing his life in cultural and political context as only a master storyteller can.
Anonymous
Posted May 4, 2007
On Feb. 4, 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold his steel-making business for an unprecedented $400 million (worth about $120 billion now). With that sale, he became 'The Richest Man in the World,' according to J.P. Morgan, who bought Carnegie's company and used it as the basis of U.S. Steel. But if you want to learn how to become the richest person in your part of the world, that's not the purpose of this biography. Instead David Nasaw minutely depicts an authentic tragic comedy in more than 800 pages, the life of an impoverished, painfully short immigrant lad who succeeded during the Gilded Age of capitalism, becoming a robber baron, philanthropist and 'peacenik.' The author uncovers many of the secret operations Carnegie used to exploit his early employers and, later, his gullible investors. This account corrects biographies that omit Carnegie's shady railroad bonds and union busting. The author also explains how Carnegie used his wealth to become one of the world's greatest philanthropists, a significant legacy that endures through the institutions and libraries he endowed. We highly recommend this detailed history for its iconoclastic scholarship, profound soul-searching and fascinating portrait of a unique, contradictory person.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I found the book was 100 percent on the money as to what was promised in the forward of the book. presently I am on page 500 of 750. I wish it was page 500 nof 500. The book is good but I have spent enough time on the subject by this point. I will continue because it is a still well written book.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 23, 2009
I definitely respect the research and the story. Thanks to Mr. Nasaw for the work, but I believe it was the interesting character of Andrew Carnegie that got me through this book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 30, 2006
It is the perfect combination of the author and the subject.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 30, 2009
This has become quite a topical book. Andrew Carnegie was one of the original "robber barrons" in the late 19th century. This book highlights his life and is timely in that we are seeing a repeat of this type of behavior today. This book covers details meticulously and certainly will get your cranium going.
His story is not one sided, so you will learn both sides of the man: how he becamse so wealthy and his philanthropy.
Anonymous
Posted December 28, 2006
The book will inspire, encourage and motivate you as a reader to be a dreamer and a doer just like Andrew Carnegie.
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Posted November 4, 2006
TRUE REVELATION OF A ROLE MODEL.
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Overview
Majestically told and based on materials not available to any previous biographer, the definitive life of Andrew Carnegie-one of American business's most iconic and elusive titans-by the bestselling author of Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst.Celebrated historian David Nasaw, whom The New York Times Book Review has called "a meticulous researcher and a cool analyst," brings new life to the story of one of America's most famous and successful businessmen and philanthropists---in what will prove to be the biography of the season.
Born of modest origins in Scotland in 1835, Andrew Carnegie is best known as the founder of Carnegie Steel. His rags ...