Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Read For Anyone
Review: I enjoyed reading this book and thought it was really well-written. Having grown up in Cambria, just a few miles south of San Simeon, I have always had an interest in William Hearst. Out of all the books published on Hearst, this one really seems to be the most comprehensive and the most credible. As a young adult, I have spent many times sitting on the beach at San Simeon cove reading a Cosmopolitan. How ironic to finally know more about the castle that soared above and the man behind it. I invite anyone to read this book and if you get a chance, take a trip to the Central Coast of California and visit Hearst Castle. It is truly an amazing place!
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Read For Anyone
Review: I enjoyed reading this book and thought it was really well-written. Having grown up in Cambria, just a few miles south of San Simeon, I have always had an interest in William Hearst. Out of all the books published on Hearst, this one really seems to be the most comprehensive and the most credible. As a young adult, I have spent many times sitting on the beach at San Simeon cove reading a Cosmopolitan. How ironic to finally know more about the castle that soared above and the man behind it. I invite anyone to read this book and if you get a chance, take a trip to the Central Coast of California and visit Hearst Castle. It is truly an amazing place!
Rating:
Summary: Yes, brilliant!
Review: I read W. Swanberg's 1961 biography of Hearst when it came out and have reread it several times since then. I just finished Nasaw's new biography and have concluded it is superior to the latter in depth and overall content. Superbly written, it is much more dazzling coverage of arguably the most fascintating public and private person outside of Washington D.C (excluding Hearst's brief role as a Congressman). Hearst lived a life that undoubtedly will not be experienced again by anybody, due to the era in which he lived and the opportunities and circumstances that era's environment presented him. I've been reading autobiographies and biographies since my childhood and this one of Hearst is the best to date. The life of our current wealthiest citizen, Billy Gates, vastly pales in comparison with that of Hearst. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: a fantastic life of matriarchy, castles, movies and money
Review: If you are at all interested in this man, this is the book to read. My interest started with Orson Wells and led me to "W.R." Mr. Nasaw has pin-pointed the essence of this man and what made him tick, without all the rhetoric of Thomas Ince or the battle over "Citizen Kane." Don't miss the chance to know William Randolph Hearst. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: Truely the Man who had it all....
Review: If you are at all interested in this man, this is the book to read. My interest started with Orson Wells and led me to "W.R." Mr. Nasaw has pin-pointed the essence of this man and what made him tick, without all the rhetoric of Thomas Ince or the battle over "Citizen Kane." Don't miss the chance to know William Randolph Hearst. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: Very Strong Biography with Few Flaws
Review: Nasaw does a very good job in turning the life of William Randolph Hearst into the subject of this popular biography. A strong writing style and a balance between section detailing the business, political and personal parts of Hearst's life keep the reader engaged. It's hard to believe the power one man had and harder still to believe that flexed it so often and so unsuccessfully on many occasions. Students of modern politics will find an instructive history about a man who is in many ways the precursor to Michael Bloomberg, Steve Forbes and Ross Perot. Students of journalism will find a man unlike any in the modern, more-or-less objective world of multinational media monsters.The book only falls short at its end, when Hearst's final years are covered in a rushed manner and his attitudes and opinions regarding World War II and the early Cold War are barely discussed. Also, at no point does Nasaw say when or why Hearst became known as "The Chief." And the chapter on "Citizen Kane," while necessary, is not too well written. This book is not quite as good as Smith's biography of Colonel Robert R. McCormack, but it again shows that the great newspapermen of the past were far more important than many realize.
Rating:
Summary: Very Strong Biography with Few Flaws
Review: Nasaw does a very good job in turning the life of William Randolph Hearst into the subject of this popular biography. A strong writing style and a balance between section detailing the business, political and personal parts of Hearst's life keep the reader engaged. It's hard to believe the power one man had and harder still to believe that flexed it so often and so unsuccessfully on many occasions. Students of modern politics will find an instructive history about a man who is in many ways the precursor to Michael Bloomberg, Steve Forbes and Ross Perot. Students of journalism will find a man unlike any in the modern, more-or-less objective world of multinational media monsters. The book only falls short at its end, when Hearst's final years are covered in a rushed manner and his attitudes and opinions regarding World War II and the early Cold War are barely discussed. Also, at no point does Nasaw say when or why Hearst became known as "The Chief." And the chapter on "Citizen Kane," while necessary, is not too well written. This book is not quite as good as Smith's biography of Colonel Robert R. McCormack, but it again shows that the great newspapermen of the past were far more important than many realize.
Rating: 
Summary: All the facts, but still lacking.
Review: Nasaw's biography of William Randolph Hearst is an easy read. That alone is quite an accomplishment. Like many biographers, you get the sense that the author is in sympathy with his subject, too much so for great chunks of so large a book. We hear detailed accounts of Hearts' continuous aquisitions, from art to newspapers to newspapermen, but Nasaw rarely seems to question Hearsts' grander motives. Was this really a man with a mission, or simply a rather large, intelligent brat? At the root of Hearst lies this question - How could one of the richest men in America declare that he only ever acted in the people's interest. Nasaw appears to swallow Hearsts' own political claims without a problem, that he was free from political affiliations and therefore free of obligations. Yet Nasaw ignores his own evidence. Again and again, we are confronted with Hearst acting out against individuals, corporations and governments with nothing but his own interests at stake. This degree of hypocrisy and selfishness are fascinating aspects of Hearsts' character, but barely addressed by an author more concerned with staking a strong claim for his subject among the crowds of 20th century historical figures.
Rating:
Summary: Money and Power-The Rise and Fall of William Randolph Hearst
Review: This is a very detailed and interesting read and the story is better than fiction. I highly recommend.
It goes without saying that without his father's money there would be no Hearst media empire, but he did manage to carve out a unique place in newspaper and magazine history and dominate the US media and many politicians for at least two to three decades. In some respects it is a sad story of success and failure, of almost unlimited media power and then rejection by the newspaper readers in the market and financial collapse.
As a book it is an engrossing but not a quick read. I found the story to be compelling at first but then to slow somewhat after page 200 or so - it is almost 600 pages long - because his story is complicated and the book is filled with details.
In any case, the book transports the reader effortlessly back to the late 1800's where we follow the volatile and fluctuating fortunes of his father George, a self made mining speculator from Missouri, and his mother, 20 years younger than George. We follow the birth in 1863 and then the education of William Hearst at Harvard, his expulsion for missing exams, and then his successes and climb to fame in the newspaper business.
His first job after flunking out of Harvard was to run the San Francisco Examiner, owned by his father. His very wealthy father had the money to maintain the Examiner running the paper at a loss as a hobby to stay involved in California politics. With his high energy, young William develops or borrows production and marketing techniques, hires good writers - many famous. He personally directs all major policies and editorial writers. He sold a lot of papers, gained market share, expanded to New York, Chicago and far beyond to become a media mogul. From about 1915 to 1935 he dominated American media and influenced many major politicians including FDR, Hoover, Churchill, and others.
According to the book, it takes Hearst until about 1910 or so to develop a formidable cash generating machine. But his empire was developed by making a classic business mistake - by borrowing too much money to fuel the expansion. He compounds this error by not reducing the debt during the good years. Instead of taking care of the business, he spends all his income on personal luxuries such as long and expensive holidays, shopping trips to buy expensive art, multiple castles, penthouse suites, buildings, renovations, yachts, numerous animals, lavish parties, movie production, politics, and he maintains buildings full of art and antiques. When the credit taps were turned off in the late 1930's and later - when the newspaper sales had stalled, the empire runs out of money and a trustee is appointed.
He spends the next decade somewhat chastened with little political influence as he watches his art being sold at auction. He moves to Beverly Hills and lives in the home of Marion Davies, his movie actress companion, 35 years younger, who at one point had to lend him a million dollars to stay afloat. After a ten year corporate recovery by the trustee, he again takes control back of the business now mostly debt free, but now a much smaller company. He spends the last decade of his life there and dies in 1951 at age 88. The Hearst children and his wife receive much reduced trusts at his death.
One wonders if he was slightly mad, or has been mad through most of his adult life, or at least at a minimum severely detached from financial reality. In many ways he was like his mother - a big spender - insulated from work and who spent most of her time shopping and buying art with George's vast income. William had the vision and drive to create the media empire using his father's wealth for start up financing, but he did not have the training and business smarts to control the finances or even care about the money details, probably since he had plenty ever since his youth. He felt invincible.
There are parallels with the fall of Conrad Black's own mini publishing empire in 2004 after similar unchecked and out of control personal spending (according to the press), and who interestingly wrote the forward for a British version of this book.
Rating:
Summary: All the Hearst you can eat, very low calories
Review: This massive, immensely detailed biography tells us almost everything we could want to know about what Hearst wrote and what was written about him. That the book is exhaustive -- the lists of food served and brought to San Simeon are endless -- is not always a strength, nor does it ensure that we have a grasp of what Hearst lived and felt. While hewing to the old-school style of biography/hagiography proves rewarding in some respects, it leaves many questions unanswered. We learn almost nothing about the political or social climate of the times in which Hearst lived, and so have little to no way of putting his writings and actions in context. Nonetheless, this is a very personal, almost moving account. That Hearst appears, despite Nasaw's best efforts, as little more than a spoiled rich kid who throws money around with varying degrees of mission and intelligence is no one's fault. A dilletante for his entire life, Hearst had amazingly little control over the effects of his money-spending. This makes a certain amount of sense, since he did nothing so much as spend his father's money for most of his life. It is chilling to think that someone as free from self-possession as WRR could change us so much.
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