Titan
A biography of America's first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., drawing from Rockefeller's personal papers to provide information about his rustic origins, his creation of Standard Oil, his often controversial business tactics, and his personal relationships and attributes. 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. Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller's exceptionally rich trove of papers. 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. 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 thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.
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19recommend
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26people
2007–2026years
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What Hacker News says
- You might want to read "Titan" by Chernow before telling me I am wrong.
- Before going any further, I suggest taking a deeper dive into Standard Oil and its so-called "monopoly".
Start with "Titan" by Chernow.
SO was basically convicted of "making too much money", and the government failed to convict SO of a monopoly.
- Probably The Singapore Story by Lee Kuan Yew or Titan by Ron Chernow. To me great biographies are more addicting than great TV.
- Here are some histories of specific industries I've read recently and supremely enjoyed:
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry
- Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (of all of these not the most amazing but still interesting)
- The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War
And then you can learn a lot by reading about the people who built the industries too. Here are a few I've been reading about recently that I recommend:
- Edison by Edmund Morris (Just read it backwards, you'll see.)
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
- The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century by Steven Watts
- Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
I also got some interesting suggestions asking a similar question on Twitter a bit ago.
- To add some that haven't already been listed here:
- The Billion Dollar Molecule: story of Vertex pharmaceuticals and their new approach to drug design
- The Double Helix: story of the discovery of the structure of DNA by one of the principal scientists involved (Watson)
More of a business/economic history but if you liked Titan by Chernow you would probably also like "Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America" which is the about the history of the railroad industry in America.
- Not sure if this is helpful, but a friend fed this conversation through ChatGPT and had it summarize for easier reading:
-The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy -Bigger by Marc Levinson
-The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos
-Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World by Erik Larson
-Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard -White
-The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War by William Manchester
-Edison by Edmund Morris
-Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
-The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century by Steven Watts
-Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
-The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
-The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
-Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age by Michael S. Malone
-The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester
-The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
-Medieval Technology and Social Change by Lynn White Jr.
-The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner
-Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics by Eric H. Chaney
-Early Electrical Communication by A. F. Marland
-Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism by Silvanus P. Thompson
-Electric Science: Its History, Phenomena, and Applications by J. J. Fahie
-The History and Present State of Electricity by Andrew Ure
-https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
-De Re Metallica by Georgius Agricola
