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Summary: Truly A Man Ahead Of His Time
Review: Rockefeller's life is an education in brilliance and savvy business practices, that was way ahead of his time. Growing up, he took care of his brother and mother while his father appeared and disappeared from their lives. After rigid determination with his schooling, he was hired as a clerk and account keeper. While there he bided his time to eventually go into business for himself, successfully, and would forever change the face of modern business. Mr. Chernow gives a gritty detailed account of John D in his trials, both as a young man raising a family, and the rigors of running a major corporation. OPEC is a modern day facility in principle that Standard Oil was in the 19th century. Anyone interested in the industrial revolution, or captains of industry, pick this up for your collection.
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Summary: Chernow's anti-protestant bias
Review: A thorough and page-turning biography, but the author uses words that betray a preconceived haughty cultural bias when he refers to Baptists and even falls into describing Episcopalians and Presbyterians by cultural generalizations in the Holy Family chapter. JDR's faith may not have kept him from taking advantage of others in his weakness of driven ambition, but it steered him well. As the first major capitalist, he was blazing new ground. We should judge him by standards of his own era, not those from our more government-driven era. Chernow fairly quotes both friends and enemies. What great man doesn't have both?
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Summary: Probably as good a biography as we will ever get
Review: It looks like the world will never know just how Rockefeller built Standard Oil into the most powerful company of its time, if not all time. Chernow has done a remarkable job in assembling and organizing every scrap of known information about the man's life, but it's still not enough to make sense of his business dealings; barely one-third of the book covers the Standard Oil years, and what we get is too superficial and fragmentary to give a complete picture. Chernow scrupulously sticks to known facts, and refrains from any kind of speculation, but this is just not enough. We never get a sense of context, or any real unifying theme other than Rockefeller's secrecy, apparently because what is known is such a small part of what went on. Much better documented are Rockefeller's philanthropies, retirement lifestyle, and (especially) his family, so we get 400-odd pages on those topics. While this does give us a more complete picture of the man, it's a not terribly remarkable man, someone who basically spent the last half of his life playing golf, making small talk with his buddies, and getting depressed that his children didn't visit more often. We hear frequently about the ruthless, brilliant robber baron who was supposedly the same guy, but we never get to meet him, apparently because Rockefeller didn't want us to. Too bad.
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Summary: Titan, the life of John D. Rockefeller
Review: A rare book written so interestingly about Rockefellers' doings and the influences that made him what he was. The parellel bewteen Rockefeller and Bill Gates seems striking!
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Summary: Shades of Gray
Review: Like many people, I have thought of John D. Rockefeller as a simple caricature, the ruthless business tycoon and skinflint, devoid of any moral or ethical sensibilities. This book shows that Rockefeller, like any other person, was a man of great complexity and subtlety. While ruthless in business practices, he also operated by a heightened sense of responsibility for society in general within his 19th and early 20th century context. While many would doubtless castigate him for his business practices, he was, in many respects, responsible for many advances in medicine, research and other philanthropic causes. The author presents a balanced portrait of the man and his times, neither dismissing his obvious flaws nor unduly praising the man. I found the book fast moving and fun as well as informative in delineating the shades of gray in an engaging study of a unique individual.
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Summary: ROCKEFELLER; Focused deterrmination
Review: I bought this book about 6 or 8 months ago. I started to read it, but it didn't do anything for me. I picked it up again about 2 weeks ago, and wow it turned out to be the best bio I've read in a long time! Rockefeller was quiet, mild and almost meek, but underneath he was like a tiger. He knew what he wanted and he was going to get it! And nobody and no thing was going to stop him!
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Summary: Amazing Biography
Review: Many biographies can be dull, but the author carefully puts the book together to make it seem more like a novel then a complete-fact biography.
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Summary: World Class Biography
Review: Ron Chernow may be our best current biographer. That he can write anything compelling on top of the millions of pages written about the nineteenth century's most famous tycoon is in itself amazing. That he has produced a work of such fluidity and expert precision may be nothing short of miraculous. Titan is more compelling than most works of fiction; a rarity in history books, it is a real page-turner. Like David McCullough's definitive biography of Harry Truman, Titan stands out as a book with a real sense of the human features of its subject, as well as a careful attention to historical context. Stories bind the whole work together and make it flow as if it were a novel. Most readers will share the same fate as Rockefeller's biographer: near the end of the story they will be so enamored of the man's story that they will decide that many of the features of the twentieth century are due entirely to the imagination and munificence of John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller may have ponied up the money, but J.P. Morgan engineered the rescue of the stock market. John was certainly a pioneer in establishing the legitimacy of institutionalized innovation at Standard Oil, but Edison beat him to the punch by a few decades. Despite these few over-eager slips in the final chapters of the book, Chernow's work stands out as a well-balanced work in a sea of tedious biographies. It is rare to see such expert use of primary material -- the educated reader will marvel at the agility with which Chernow handles volumes of personal correspondance, interview transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles. History House feels it is a bit obvious to mention the timeliness of a good Rockefeller biography in the most recent Gilded Age, with its cast of Gates, Greenspan and the dot com billionaires. But we've never been ones for subtlety. Buy this book and set aside a week to read it. You won't put it down. [HistoryHouse.com]
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Summary: Enjoyable biography. Outstanding.
Review: This is one of the best biographies I've ever read; I often found myself having a hard time putting the book down. Chernow has done a fantastic job of providing a clear illustration of Rockefeller (the man as opposed to the corporation). After reading the book; I almost felt that I knew the man at one time. You really get to know the intricacies of his character; his motivations, his idiosyncrasies, his personal flaws, etc. The insight into the monopolistic business practices of Standard Oil was also quite fascinating.
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Summary: The parallels to Gates and MSFT are an interesting subtext
Review: I am in awe of Ron Chernow for writing a long and thorough biography that I absolutely could not put down. Rarely have I finished such a long book in such a short period of time. Chernow manages to show how complex Rockefeller's personality and motives, were, and he helps us to avoid the all-too-easy cliches about the rich and powerful. Yet while revealing the complexity, he is never boring, didactic, or long-winded. I found it interesting to compare Rockefeller and Standard Oil to Bill Gates and Microsoft. Both men are powerful, rich, misunderstood, certain that their actions are ethical and good for their country and the economy, and dedicated to helping those who are less fortunate. Both men vow(ed) to give away most of their fortune. Both have been attacked by their own government, and villified in the press. Both dominate media coverage of business. And, like Rockefeller, Gates is a brilliant strategist who defies easy cliches and shallow descriptions. You can see goodness in either man, and you can also see evil. The beauty of Chernow's biography is that he allows us to see both sides of Rockefeller, without ever landing on either side himself. Regardless of my thoughts on the parallels, I highly recommend this bio. Four friends are receiving it as their Christmas gift from me.
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