Author(s): Anderson Cooper; Katherine Howe
Publisher: Harper, Year: 2021
“Splendid… haunting and beautifully written.” — *Washington Post*
The #1 New York Times bestselling chronicle of the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty, authored by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and historian Katherine Howe.
One of the Washington Post’s Notable Works of Nonfiction.
When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt started working on his father’s small boat, ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the dawn of the nineteenth century, no one could have predicted that he would one day, through ruthlessness, cunning, and an insatiable desire for wealth, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—making him the richest man in America. After his death in 1877, his staggering fortune became a source of contention among his heirs, leading to familial discord that would never fully heal. Although his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to spend it in increasingly extravagant ways. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—a seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, built by Cornelius’s grandson—the family had become unrecognizable to the tycoon who founded it all.
Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper teams up with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his iconic family and their profound influence. Cooper and Howe bring to life the ancestors who built the family’s empire, reveled in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and epitomized unfettered American capitalism and high society. They take us from the rugged wharves of old Manhattan to the opulent drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, recounting the triumphs and tragedies of a truly unique American dynasty.
Written from an insider’s perspective, this captivating history is as remarkable as the family it so vividly portrays.
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