The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Laura Hillenbrand · 453 pages

Retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.

Andrew Carnegie

David Nasaw · 896 pages

In this magnificent biography, celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the fascinating rags- to-riches story of one of our most iconic business legends—Andrew Carnegie, America's first modern titan. From his first job as a bobbin boy at age thirteen to his status as the richest man in the world upon retirement, Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream and the prototype of today's

The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King

Rich Cohen · 270 pages

When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, banana hauler, dockside hustler, and plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and w

The House of Rothschild, Vol 1: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848

Niall Ferguson · 596 pages

This second volume of Niall Ferguson's acclaimed, landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern times. With all the depth, clarity and drama with which he traced the Rothschild's ascent, Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly t

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shattered a Nation

Andrew Ross Sorkin · 592 pages

1929 is a tale of power, psychology, and the seductive illusion that “this time is different.” It's about disregarded alarm bells, financiers who fell from grace, and skeptics who saw the crash coming—only to be dismissed until it was too late.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Ron Chernow · 816 pages

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 ico

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

Marc Levinson · 395 pages

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in t

Sam Walton: Made In America

Sam Walton, John Huey · 272 pages

Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century, Sam never lost the common touch. Here, finally, inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure if his ambitions and achie

The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea

John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge · 272 pages

"Like all groundbreaking books, The Company fills a hole we didn't know existed, revealing that we cannot make sense of the past four hundred years until we place that seemingly humble Victorian innovation, the joint-stock company, in the center of the frame. With their trademark authority and wit, Economist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge reveal the company to be one of history's

The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

Frank Partnoy · 280 pages

At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish emigre Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged. Driven by success to adopt ever-more perilous practices, Kreuger had turned to shell

More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite

Sebastian Mallaby · 482 pages

Based on unprecedented access to the industry, including three hundred hours of interviews, economist/journalist Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s and 1970s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of 21st century capitalism. Ken Griffin started

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin · 916 pages

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the R

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Daniel James Brown · 416 pages

Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing f

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Alice Schroeder · 1,255 pages

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing

The worldly philosophers

Robert L. Heilbroner · 342 pages

Morgan: American Financier

Jean Strouse · 796 pages

A century ago, J. Pierpont Morgan bestrode the financial world like a colossus. The organizing force behind General Electric, U.S. Steel, and vast railroad empires, he served for decades as America's unofficial central banker: a few months after he died in 1913, the Federal Reserve replaced the private system he had devised. An early supporter of Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, the confidant (

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Shaped the Modern World

Jane Gleeson-White · 299 pages

A fascinating exploration of how a simple system used to measure and record wealth spawned a cultural revolution. Prepare to have your idea of accounting changed forever.

Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft - 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry

Deborah Cadbury · 384 pages

In the early nineteenth century Richard Cadbury sent his son, John, to London to study a new and exotic commodity: cocoa. Within a generation, John's sons had created a chocolate company to rival the great English firms of Rowntree and Fry. All three firms were Quaker family enterprises, and their business aims were infused with religious idealism. As chocolate companies raced to compete around th

The Rothschilds

Virginia Cowles · 304 pages

A comprehensive history of three generations of the Rothschilds, and their influence across two generations of European history.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

H.W. Brands · 888 pages

A sweeping biography of the life and political career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt draws on archival materials, public speeches, interviews with family and colleagues, and personal correspondence to examine FDR's political leadership in a dark time of Depression and war, his championship of the poor, his revolutionary New Deal legislation, and his legacy for the future.

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

Richard White · 660 pages

This work is a history of the transcontinental railroads and how they transformed America in the decades after the Civil War. The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the U.S. economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of po

King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father

Brooke Barbier · 320 pages

Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend

Mitchell Zuckoff · 440 pages

You've heard of the scheme. Now comes the man behind it. In Mitchell Zuckoff's exhilarating book, the first nonfiction account of Charles Ponzi, we meet the charismatic rogue who launched the most famous and extraordinary scam in the annals of American finance.It was a time when anything seemed possible--instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury--and for a run of magical weeks in the spring

Grand Pursuit: A History of Economic Genius

Sylvia Nasar · 558 pages

A brilliant new approach to the story of modern economics and to understanding how we got into today's financial mess. As the twenty-first century faces new and ever more daunting economic obstacles, Sylvia Nasar tells the story of how our financial world came to function as it does today, and how a handful of men and women would change the lives of every person on the planet. Economics was not al