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

This is a HUGE book so big I did a renewal of my library loan and still didn't finish it.

What I was able to learn about was how his childhood was a major impact on how he approached his personal and professional life. And to see how he was almost 2 separate men, with different outlooks on life for each of these.

It's amazing to learn just how much of what he created is and isn't still around.

The author [and narrator] does a great job of keeping this beast of a book lively and interesting. The story is pretty much linear but there are some overlaps due to the subject and number of others involved in Rockefeller's life.

Looong

A very long and very detailed look into a very complicated person and his family. It was interesting to read how capitalism was being formed and how even the symbol of capitalism himself preferred companies working together rather than leaving things to the “free market”. He believed that the competitive free-for-all eventually gave way to monopoly and that large industrial-planning units were the most sensible way to manage an economy.

What makes it hard to dislike the guy is that he was the foremost philanthropist. Rockefeller accelerated the shift from the personal, ad hoc charity that had traditionally been the province of the rich to something both more powerful and more impersonal. He established the promotion of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, as a task no less important than giving alms to the poor or building schools, hospitals, and museums. He showed the value of expert opinion, thorough planning, and competent administration in nonprofit work, setting a benchmark for professionalism in the emerging foundation field.

OK, this was a massive book. Took me a long while to finish it, however I have to say the author did an outstanding work, this was one of most thorough biography works I've read. A deep investigation into the many sides of Rockefeller's life; private, family, business. From a look into his upbringing all through his descendants' lives. I learned a lot about this man's life, the bad and the good.

Excellent work by Ron Chernow, for anyone interested in the life of John D. Rockefeller, the man that changed the world in industry, philanthropy, and built the biggest fortune in history by his time; this is the definitive one.