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

To put it simply John D Rockefeller was till date the single richest man in history ever, well now that requires a second mention THE RICHEST MAN EVER even when you compare the Pharaohs of Egypt, Bill Gates, or any of the Ancient Emperors. He was the first man to amass a fortune of close to a Billion dollars and that is in 1900 currency. To give you another comparison, John.D was earning more than a million dollars a month when the average American income was 19$ a week, and that is before the days of income tax.


So it is not surprising that his biography would be a best seller. The book paints a picture of a man of contrasts that was John D, His aggressive and ruthless monopolistic business attitude against his kind and generous that forever changed the face of old money.

Ron Chernow traces John.D's start as a humble no name who never went to college and started trading in commodities, moved on to trading higher commodities petroleum and in Thirty years through brute force and gentle diplomacy built Standard Oil Corporation to one of the biggest monopolies in the world. Not very different from the Monopoly Bill Gates has over the Home Pc Market.

The book is not condescending of the man who is loved and hated at the same time by such large numbers of people. It brings into light some of the shadowy deals, and methods of work which made Standard Oil to the world's biggest monopoly. It doesn't give an aspiring reader like me a detailed insight into John.D's methods of treating people but the book has a few examples nevertheless.

Here is the Wikipedia page on the John D. Rockefeller, Sr which also makes interesting reading.