5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FROM THE PUBLISHER, July 6, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Otto Kahn: Art, Money, and Modern Time (Hardcover)
In the early decades of the twentieth century, almost everyone in modern theater, literature, or film knew of Otto Kahn (1867-1934), and those who read the financial press or followed the news from Wall Street could scarcely have missed his name. A partner at one of America's premier private banks, he played a leading role in reorganizing the U.S. railroad system and supporting the Allied war effort in World War I. The German-Jewish Kahn was also perhaps the most influential patron of the arts the nation has ever seen: he helped finance the Metropolitan Opera, brought the Ballets Russes to America, and bankrolled such promising young talent as poet Hart Crane, the Provincetown Players, and the editors of the Little Review.
This book is the full-scale biography Kahn has long deserved. Theresa Collins chronicles Kahn's life and times and reveals his singular place at the intersection of capitalism and modernity. Drawing on research in private correspondence, congressional testimony, and other sources, she paints a fascinating portrait of the figure whose seemingly incongruous identities as benefactor and banker inspired the New York Times to dub him the "Man of Steel and Velvet."
"This rich and fascinating biography tells the remarkable story of a remarkable man who, combining the power of an international financier with the finesse of a patron of the arts, helped make New York City a world cultural capital."--Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
"Theresa Collins's Otto Kahn is a superb piece of biography and a major work of historical reclamation. This is history written in the grand manner--sweeping in scope, majestic in style. And it restores to us in all his grandeur and cultural consequence a remarkable figure from our past."--Martin Duberman, City University of New York
"This first full-length biography of Otto Kahn offers a compelling portrait of a major figure in the history of American finance and culture. The keen eye and vivid prose of Theresa Collins illuminate the many facets of this fascinating character and his world."--Maury Klein, University of Rhode Island
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Business History Review, July 21, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Otto Kahn: Art, Money, and Modern Time (Hardcover)
"a genuinely transnational biography and a model for those who wish to engage in that rapidly growing field of historical scholarship."(Michael Kammen, Cornell University)
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Modern-day Medici, July 8, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Otto Kahn: Art, Money, and Modern Time (Hardcover)
In his day, J.P. Morgan was the best-known head of an American financial house. But Otto Kahn was a close second. Today, Morgan enjoys immortality in the popular imagination, while Kahn is all but forgotten. Thankfully Theresa Collins ... has produced a biography of Kahn that illuminates his importance as a man who successfully combined modern business sensibilities with art patronage. (Review by Ian Drake, Philanthropy Magazine, May/June 2003)
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