American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford

by Roland De Wolk

Overview

The rags-to-riches story of Silicon Valley's original disruptor.

American Disruptor is the untold story of Leland Stanford – from his birth in a backwoods bar to the founding of the world-class university that became and remains the nucleus of Silicon Valley. The life of this robber baron, politician, and historic influencer is the astonishing tale of how one supremely ambitious man became this country's original "disruptor" – reshaping industry and engineering one of the greatest raids on the public treasury for America’s transcontinental railroad, all while living more opulently than maharajas, kings, and emperors.

It is also the saga of how Stanford, once a serial failure, overcame all obstacles to become one of America’s most powerful and wealthiest men, using his high elective office to enrich himself before losing the one thing that mattered most to him—his only child and son. Scandal and intrigue would follow Stanford through his life, and even after his death, when his widow was murdered in a Honolulu hotel—a crime quickly covered up by the almost stillborn university she had saved. Richly detailed and deeply researched, American Disruptor restores Leland Stanford’s rightful place as a revolutionary force and architect of modern America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520383234
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	598,096
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Roland De Wolk is an investigative reporter in print, broadcast, and online journalism. He is a historian, university adjunct, and, of course, an author. 
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue: Fell Redemption xiii

1 Start-Up 1

2 Everything Ventured 14

3 Crossing 24

4 The Gold under the Mountain 36

5 Ditching and Hitching 49

6 "The Road Muse Be Built" 61

7 "Egyptian Kings and Dynasties Shall Be Forgotten" 73

8 Dungeons and Depredations 85

9 Living Up to the Landscape 97

10 Command and Control 107

11 "The Machine of Steam on the Road of Iron" 119

12 Unmasked 130

13 Gone Dark 144

14 Ingeniously Contrived Devices 158

15 Deposed 170

16 The Fundamental Standard 183

17 Sex and Socialism 194

18 "God Forgive Me My Sins. Am I Prepared to Meet My Dear Ones?" 202

Requiem: American Disruptor 217

Noies 231

Bibliographical Note 265

Bibliography 269

Index 289

About the Author 299

Illustrations follow page 174.

Editorial Reviews

"Stanford was an uneducated anti-intellectual, yet defined himself as “a technologist” and wanted Stanford University to thrive as a trade school. He played a major role in vaulting America into peak ascendancy, yet had few qualms bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars in the process (before going on to be a U.S. Senator). And those are just a few of the threads that De Wolk pulls to weave an engaging and highly relevant portrait of a profoundly influential, turbulent and, yes—“scandalous” life."

The Six Fifty

"A superb new account of Stanford’s 'preposterous career and life.'"

Berkeleyside

"Stanford was an uneducated anti-intellectual, yet defined himself as “a technologist” and wanted Stanford University to thrive as a trade school. He played a major role in vaulting America into peak ascendancy, yet had few qualms bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars in the process (before going on to be a U.S. Senator). And those are just a few of the threads that De Wolk pulls to weave an engaging and highly relevant portrait of a profoundly influential, turbulent and, yes—“scandalous” life."

Six Fifty

"Vivid prose and a strong narrative drive."

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Readable and entertaining. . . . De Wolk not only introduces a much more believable Stanford, warts and all, but also does a great job of showing how his legacy and reputation was managed, massaged and sanitized after his death."

True West

"Stanford’s warts have long been on display, and De Wolk doesn’t avoid them, but the details the author has unearthed reveal a far more complex figure, one who clearly loved his wife and son. The author sums him up as an ordinary man who found himself in extraordinary circumstances and contends that history 'shows that the business Stanford pioneered was the foundation not only for Silicon Valley but also for the modern corporation itself.'"

HistoryNet

"American Disruptor penetrates the thicket of hagiography surrounding Leland Stanford."

New York Review of Books

"American Disruptor provides a dense but swift-moving primer on Stanford’s rise from tavern owner’s son to tycoon." 

Stanford Magazine

"The original tech bro? Leland Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, emerges as a spiritual forefather of Silicon Valley-style monopolism, exploitation and conflicts of interest in this dramatic new biography by Bay Area journalism professor Roland De Wolk."

KQED Arts