The First Tycoon: Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt - 07/25/2011

Pulitzer Prize winning author T.J. Stiles

Of all the key industrialists and financial figures of American history, Vanderbilt may well be the most important. Yet, unlike Jay Gould, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie, the Commodore has never received a full and authoritative biography. The First Tycoon weaves some six years of intensive research (in previously untapped archives) into a fast-paced story of a man and the nation rising together. Ranging from his humble birth on Staten Island during the presidency of George Washington through the days of John D. Rockefeller (with whom Vanderbilt made deals), The First Tycoon recounts Vanderbilt's rise from sailboat ferryman to steamboat entrepreneur, from master of transoceanic steamship lines to builder of a railroad empire. Along the way, Stiles describes Vanderbilt's personal adventures in the Nicaraguan jungle, his epic campaigns on Wall Street, and the intrigue that divided his family. Most important, Stiles shows how Vanderbilt helped to shape American thinking about equality and opportunity and create the modern economic world.