Through their dynastic control of The New York Times, the Ochses and Sulzbergers have been the most powerful family in twentieth-century America. Not only have they owned the Times for more than a hundred years, but a family member has always been at the paper's helm, a position that has given them enormous influence and has been passed down as a birthright through four generations. Yet by design they have always been intensely private, shunning the visibility their stature inherently commands. The Trust is the first full-scale portrait of this modern monarchy, a dramatic saga set against a backdrop of world events and the burden and privilege of wealth and power. Here is the story of Adolph Ochs, a visionary dedicated to presenting the news objectively, a man who appeared supremely confident yet was often racked by depression and insecurity; of his daughter, Iphigene, an exceptional woman whose gender prevented her from achieving official authority at the Times but who used her position as family matriarch to foster and guard its mystique; of her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who began his career at the Times as an unpromising son-in-law but went on to become a brilliant and controversial publisher, steering the paper through the crises of World War II, the Holocaust, and the excesses of McCarthyism; of his only son, Punch, who came to the publisher's job with little discernible talent, yet proved tough enough to guide the paper to its greatest journalistic and financial heights; and of the paper's most recent leader, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who struggles daily with the task of preserving his forebears' values amid the uncertainties of a digital age.
With novelistic drive and detail, The Trust tells the story of how the domestic dramas of one extraordinary clan shaped the pages of the greatest newspaper in the world; of a Jewish family that found itself under attack for its policies from both anti-Semites and Jews alike; of succession battles, human frailty, and tremendous affluence; and of the legacy of public responsibility that has driven the family to serve as devoted stewards of a trust they hold sacred.
The Trust was written with the full cooperation of the Ochses and Sulzbergers and unconditional access to The New York Times' archives, but with the authors retaining complete independence. The result is not only a richly detailed portrait of an American dynasty but a fascinating chronicle of the twentieth century. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
