The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

by T.J. Styles

In one of the greatest rags-to-riches tales of all time, biographer T.J. Styles offers an overview of the making of the great American capitalist Cornelius Vanderbilt—from humble birth to the birth of the modern corporation—and in so doing tells the wider story of U.S. economic history. Styles, observed The New York Times Book Review, “offers a fruitful way to think about the larger history of American elites as well as the life of one of their most famous members.”