Customer Reviews

The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Charles Morris's "The Tycoons" is a good summation of the Industrial Revolution but is almost certainly poorly sub-titled with "How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan Invented the Supereconomy". The New York Times did a review on October 2, 2005 and Todd Buchholtz hit the nail on the head writing "The Tycoons is not a path-breaking work of scholarship, testing new hypotheses against freshly uncovered facts." In fact a good part of Morris's book has nothing to do with these four very important men of commerce influenced anything. Rather he does show what the principal drivers behind such an economic explosion were. His writings on the four are based upon good, but not really extensive, research. For instance, much of his writing on Morgan is attributable to the best seller by Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan. While this was certainly a terrific book, to have it as THE principal souce or one of your main topics, is to short change any serious effort at research.

He manages to get a plug on the book by I.W. Brands of the University of Texas, one of our most well respected historians on the period. Perhaps Professor Brands saw something I did not. That said, it is a quick read and a rather fun one. A bit more organization would have gone a long way.

Ever wonder when and how America modernized, when we stopped making our own soap at home and started buying it in the department stores, or when the department stores started? More importantly, do you know when America went from the land of the artisan to mass production and fulfillment of the market needs of the many, with less regard for quality than for quantity? Even if you do not need those questions answered, you ought to read this gem of a book to understand how American genius in management and technology turned our country from a broken victim of the Civil War to the world's most productive and rich nation in less than 35 years. It will make you wonder about the cycle we are currently in and whether those who make dire predictions about our economy in view of a robust China have thought through the changes that count. Morris does not lead you in that direction, but your inquiring mind will be thinking of the lessons to be learned from this highly readable and thoughtful mix of history, commerce and economics.

This is a great book for looking at the economic history of the United States. It covers mostly the four mentioned in the title but what was really fantastic and what deserves that extra star is that it covers the economic developments on the side. It looks at how our economy outpace Europe and the shift to make America that extra superpower. WE also have a look at how our ability to move west gave us an added advantage and that we did not have to resort to colonies. While we exported much we still made tremendous gains in internal improvements. He also grasp how the development of the coronation as an institution led to the rise of clerical and accounting positions creating hundreds of service jobs. This book is incredibly well written and really holds your interest. It offered the best explanation of Gould's attempt to corner the gold market I have ever read. It is very well researched and makes references to the top economic historians out there. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the United States developed economically

I picked up "The Tycoons" to read, in one place, a chatty summation of recent research about Rockefeller, Gould, Carnegie, and Morgan, but instead found myself pulled through a keyhole onto a vast landscape new to me: how America invented mass-market manufacturing. We were the first country to figure out how to make two rifles so exactly alike that their components could be mixed and matched on the battlefield. The Silicon Valley of this period was the Connecticut River, navigable down to New York with access, via the Erie Canal, to the midwest markets. This river was the site of all the key water-powered factories where early automation and assembly lines created the first mass-produced items for daily life. Besides famous tycoons, we meet the forgotten engineers and efficiency experts who invented modern manufacturing and then spread its gospel to Europe. Through this book you are present at the birth of American economic dynamism. A readable and fascinating survey.

MY RATING SYSTEM:

* - if you have to chose between torture and reading this book, then you might want to consider reading the book - although it depends on just how severe the torture would be.

** - if you've lost your job and have quite a bit of free time on your hands, and don't have anything else better to do, then you might want to consider reading this book; don't expect to learn much or really be entertained. It will however, help you pass the time until your death.

*** - meh...I'm indifferent. Reading this book will not alter your life in any significant way, yet it is not so horrendously dreadful that your taking the time to read it will be a complete waste of time.

**** - Good book to great book zone here. You should probably read this book if you have some spare time. This book could be interesting, entertaining, or informative.

***** - Outstanding book! Make time to read this book - you'll learn or be entertained or intrigued. The book might even be good enough to provide original or helpful insights into the world that we live in.

REVIEW:

I purchased this book expecting to read four independent stories relating to each of Jay Gould, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and JD Rockefeller. I was surprised to find that this was not what this book was about at all. Instead, The Tycoons nests the stories of each of these American capitalists within a detailed account of the rise of American industry. In one sense, this was a disappointment, in another a blessing.

Much of the discussion in the book is focused on the technological developments that facilitated American industrialism as well as the political and economic environment in which these four legendary capitalists built their empires. Rather than independently address each of the four subjects of the book, The Tycoons presents an account that enmeshes the stories of each. At times the 'background' stories get boring, but nonetheless, their existence in the book is important in ensuring a basic understanding of the world in which these individuals operated.

Being poorly read in the area of business history, I found this book to be a decent introduction into the development of American capitalism, although at times it seemed to drag.

The author picked four gents from the larger selection of whom we today call the "Robber Barons." In this book, they are Jay Gould, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Picking too many always waters down a book of this sort, so the author's job becomes connecting his choices in a believable way. Charles Morris does a creditable job here, because his gallery of rogues did cross paths many times. A century ago these businessmen's dealings wove in and out of each other's, sometimes to make deals, sometimes to out-deal each other. The thread connecting all four tycoons is finance, steel, railroads, and their many deals.

Many other significant persons pepper "Tycoons." Three of these very critical and interesting ones are Henry Frick, Charles Schwab, and Alexander Holley. Schwab and Frick are relatively well known. Holley is much less so. As the engineer-architect of Andrew Carnegie's steel factories, his place in manufacturing history is badly underrated. Kudos to the author for this particular substory. Holley gets special emphasis at the end of the book by a favorable comparison to the more famous Frederick Taylor, of "scientific management" fame. In fact, the reader will enjoy the author's argument that Holley should have replaced Taylor in our history books. Interesting!

"Tycoons" makes smooth reading, and the time sitting down to do so will pass quickly. The end of the book neither summarizes nor concludes well as most works do. Subjectively, the ending appeared to be more a "what else?" kind of chapter. This might be all right, but a summary might have served better here. Still a recommended work.

Alas, I should have listened to my fellow Amazoners.

They tried to warn me that despite the misleading title there wasn't very much in this book about the tycoons themselves. Well, I ignored them and blew the full retail price at a local store. If you want to read in minute detail about how a variety of engineering and manufacturing problems which had plagued industry were finally solved by the great minds of the second half of the 19th century, this book is for you. If you want to read about Gould, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Hill, Stanford, and Morgan, check out Matthew Josephson's classic instead. There's very little about any of the tycoons here.

The editors of this book should have insisted on another, more accurate, title.

As for the book itself, it's a pedestrian-like plod through history. Some books you can't put down after picking them up. This is most definitely not one one of them. I find myself taking taking one or two week breaks in between chapters while I devour other books in two consecutive evenings.

If you want to learn about the background in which the robber barons operated this may be the book for you. Just be forewarned that there's scant little about them between the covers.

I got this book as I was interested in the four men featured, and figured it would be a consolidated volume of their biographies and how they interacted and influenced each other. It did deliver on that, but there was all this other stuff I didn't expect or care to read about. The title of this book should have been, "American Economic History from 1860-1900 and Four Men who were Influential." The largest point of dissatisfaction was that there are two major digressions that are chapters long. The first is the explanation of manufacturing rifles and the second is about the evolution of steel production. I understand the steel production has a lot to do with Carnegie, but there was no comparable explantion about oil for Rockefeller or banking for Morgan. Watch out! This book was also written by a lawyer, and it shows. I kept track of how many words I had to look up in the dictionary while reading this and it turned out to be over 100! And I fancy myself as a pretty educated and sophisticated person (I chose this book to read for leisure, didn't I?). Overall, I gave it three stars as the title is misleading and the long boring digressions took away from the other enjoyments.

Although I'm only halfway through...

This book historically contextualizes the lives of these men, allowing the reader to see behind the mysterious curtain of textbook accounts. Morris paints a very clear picture of the young economy and society of the U.S. so we don't only learn about the Tycoons but about how everyone else was faring at that time. We see how their world shaped them and then how they shaped their world--a great cause-and-effect telling.

For those economists and lawyers out there (and the author is both), this book is stuffed with detailed information that may require a little bit of expertise to fully appreciate. If you're not an economist or lawyer, the book might seem a little drawn out at times. Virtually all of it, though--details and big picture--significantly contributes to leading the reader to an understanding of how his/her current economy and civilization evolved, and giving him/her the tools to perhaps predict where it's going.

`The Tycoons' is a look at the life of four American giants of industry and the effect they have had on the American economy. It looks at Carnegie (Steel), Gould (Railways), Rockefeller (Oil) and Morgan (Banking), all key components of society and economy in the years after the civil war. It also looks at the life and times of these men in general and the growth of the consumer society in America. This book can be a little dry at times, especially when it goes off on a tangent and takes a while to get back to the main theme of the book. It is worth noting that this is in no way a dedicated biography of each man and to be honest it would have been a lot better if it had been, as these are the most fascinating parts of the book. There are numerous photos throughout that illustrate the various points raised, as well as comprehensive Appendices and Notes. The worst part of the book is the unfocused and protracted ending, for some reason it looks at a man (Taylor) who's ideas were discounted and later overlooked and goes into great detail about his exploits, it also didn't relate very well to the rest of the book. After a fascinating book it was frankly ruined by the lack of satisfactory conclusion or final remarks to tie everything together. If this piqued your interest then I can heartily recommend `Carnegie' by Peter Krass which is an excellent biography. All in all this an interesting book, that is engaging and relatively easy to read, the only flaw is the unfocused ending that will leave you mildly frustrated.

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