Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer [Hardcover]

Stephen Dando-Collins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2008

When he died in 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the Vanderbilt dynasty, was wealthier than the U.S. Treasury. But he had nearly lost his fortune in 1856, when William Walker, a young Nashville genius, set out to conquer Central America and, in the process, take away Vanderbilt’s most profitable shipping business. To win back his empire, Vanderbilt had to win a bloody war involving seven countries.

Tycoon’s War tells the story of an epic imperialist duel—a violent battle of capitalist versus idealist, money versus ambition—and a monumental clash of egos that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans.

Written by a master storyteller, this incredible true story, impeccably researched and never before told in full, is packed with greed, intrigue, and some of the most hair-raising battle scenes ever written.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Dando-Collins (Caesar's Legion) recounts the conflict between tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt and adventurer William Walker over the control of Nicaragua from 1855 to 1857. Walker, with mercenary support, entered Nicaragua's civil war in 1855 on the side of the Democratico forces against the Legitimistas. Historians have seen the Tennessee native as wishing to reintroduce slavery to Nicaragua and encourage settlement by American Southerners. Dando-Collins claims that Walker initially acted out of personal ambition, seeking to emulate Sam Houston of Texas. Only after he was elected president of Nicaragua in 1856 did he turn to slaving-holding interests to support colonization and to bring in African labor. Dando-Collins's basis for his defense of Walker? That he came from a family hostile to slavery and there is no record that he supported the practice of slavery himself. Even if the paper trail is not there, Walker's willingness to reintroduce and thus expand slavery demonstrates tolerance for the institution and/or unscrupulous desire for power. His actions put him into conflict with Vanderbilt, who controlled a major portion of shipping routes that used Nicaragua as overland transit between the Atlantic and Pacific. After the Democratico government seized his company's assets, Vanderbilt, with the tacit encouragement of the U.S. government, supplied Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador with money for arms to depose Walker in 1857. While Dando-Collins presents the story readably, his questionable historical interpretation limits his book's value. Only for academic collections seeking comprehensive coverage.—Stephen Hupp. West Virginia Univ. Lib., Parkersburg
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Review

Kirkus Reviews, 08/01/08
“[An] absorbing tale of a conflict in 19th-century Central America sparked by two men with rather different ideas about Manifest Destiny…A dual biography of William Walker and Cornelius Vanderbilt…Dando-Collins juggles disparate elements to maintain cohesion in a convoluted history of military campaigns, changes in governments, complicated business transactions and bizarre backdoor diplomatic dealings.”

John Steele Gordon, Wall Street Journal
“A fascinating window into an era when the rules of industrial capitalism were in their infancy and gunboat diplomacy was standard operating procedure…Dando-Collins tells this tale well, bringing the events and the personalities to vivid life. The book reads almost as a densely detailed screenplay treatment for a hell of a movie…A terrific read.”

Shelf Awareness, 10/08
“A richly detailed recounting of the careers of William Walker and Cornelius Vanderbilt before 1855 and the epic battle of wills that raged between them during 1856 and 1857…A rip-roaring adventure that is also an object lesson in political and commercial exploitation of Central America at the hands of William Walker and Cornelius Vanderbilt, two larger-than-life 19th century American originals.”

Dallas Morning News
“Stephen Dando-Collins did his homework in this tale of guns-trump-butter capitalism.”

Augusta Metro Spirit
“An in-depth look at one of the more fascinating periods of Vanderbilt’s life with a crisp narrative built upon impeccable archival research. Tycoon’s War is a story of the celebration of greed during the expansion of these United States, which highlights the blood, cruelty and power struggle at the heart of American capitalism throughout the ages…Tycoon’s War is a classic story of conflict, desire, and the strive for success at all costs…Packed from cover to cover with greed and suspense, this book resonates with a contemporary America buried in a struggling economy where the rich buy yachts while the rest struggle to fill gas tanks…Built upon a fascinating display of historical events, this story strikes at the heart of the capitalist machine while raising questions about the nature of today’s wars and tomorrow’s tycoons. A smooth read that blends conflict and concern into a healthy mixture of greedy suspense, Dando-Collins has once again spun of a gem of a tale by crafting a narrative that allows us to view the past while seeking our own futures in a world often far beyond the control of the average person.”

Library Journal
“Dando-Collins presents the story readably.”

Curled Up with a Good Book
“Dando-Collins does an excellent job of turning his dedicated research into an easy-to-read narrative of the corruption, greed and murder that Vanderbilt epitomized…A frightening glimpse behind the façade of Cornelius Vanderbilt.”

Augusta Metro Spirit, 8/27/08
“A classic story of conflict, desire, and the strive for success at all costs…Packed from cover to cover with greed and suspense, this book resonates with a contemporary America buried in a struggling economy where the rich buy yachts while the rest struggle to fill gas tanks…A gem of a tale.”

Wall Street Journal, 8/30/08
“A fascinating window into an era when the rules of industrial capitalism were in their infancy and gunboat diplomacy was standard operating procedure…Dando-Collins tells this tale well, bringing the events and the personalities to vivid life. The book reads almost as a densely detailed screenplay treatment for a hell of a movie…A terrific read.”
 

Curled Up with a Good Book, 9/1/08
“Dando-Collins does an excellent job of turning his dedicated research into an easy-to-read narrative of the corruption, greed and murder that Vanderbilt epitomized…A frightening glimpse behind the façade of Cornelius Vanderbilt.”
 

Dallas Morning News, 9/7/08
“Stephen Dando-Collins did his homework in this tale of guns-trump-butter capitalism.”
 

January
“This is plenty exciting stuff…It’s an interesting story, well told and extensively researched…[Dando-Collins] has here delivered a story that’s never before been told.” 
 

United Press International, 9/29/08
“Brings to light an aspect of Walker's career that has not been well appreciated: his conflict with America's richest man, Cornelius Vanderbilt.” 
 

InfoDad.com, 9/25/08
“This complex and fascinating story is told…with all the verve of a novelist writing a book that will one day become a screenplay—which, come to think of it, is an excellent idea…A genuinely thrilling book.”
 

Bookviews.com, 10/08
“Would make a great movie”
 

PopMatters.com, 11/6/08
“Offers blow-by-blow historical reconstructions of Walker’s military battles and political maneuverings in Nicaragua…In many of these passages, the depth of Dando-Collins’s research is on impressive display: he does an excellent job of placing the reader right in the middle of the action by employing well-sourced details about the people, places, and events of the book. Some of the battle scenes contain passages of high suspense, as well as vivid, lifelike characterizations of several of Walker’s fellow soldiers…These moment-by-moment accounts of Walker’s military adventures are often engrossing.”
 

Providence Journal, 11/2/08
“The sheer drama of the story, ably conveyed by Dando-Collins’ efficient prose, sweeps the reader along through the misadventure…[His] version of the tale reminds a 21st-century audience that nation-building by Americans on foreign soil is no new phenomenon.”
 

Charleston Post and Courier, 10/19/08
“This is one incredible story of adventurism gone wild…A story of blind ambition, the clash of wills, money and conquest—all the elements of a good story.”
 

Milwaukee Shepard Express, 11/6/08
“A page-turning history lesson in greed and folly…A sordid, fascinating and true tale.”
 

Southwest Journal of Cultures, November 2008
“A well-written and compelling story about an oft-overlooked chapter in U.S. history…A creative work, well worth the attention of those interested in the nineteenth century…The combination of industrial capitalism, mercenaries, greed, excess, and genius—combined with Dando-Collins’ storytelling capabilities—make this a very absorbing story, and one worth retelling.”
 

Military Heritage, 4/09
“An insightful look at American history…[An] absorbing story of greed and power in 19th-century America.”

California Territorial Quarterly
“An excellent book.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Printing edition (August 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306816075
• ISBN-13: 978-0306816079
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Nicaragua

More About the Author

Stephen Dando-Collins is the author of Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome, Nero's Killing Machine: The True Story of Rome's Remarkable Fourteenth Legion, Cleopatra's Kidnappers: How Caesar's Sixth Legion Gave Egypt to Rome and Rome to Caesar, and Mark Antony's Heroes: How the Third Gallica Legion Saved an Apostle and Created an Emperor. He is an Australian-born researcher, editor, and author who has spent the last three decades identifying and studying the individual legions of the Roman army of the late Republic and the empire of the Caesars.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The least that could have been done with such exciting materials, September 8, 2008

By 

Stephen R. Laniel (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (Hardcover)

The ground here is so fertile; it's a shame that Stephen Dando-Collins does approximately nothing with it. We start with one of the coolest lines in the history of capitalism -- a letter from a tycoon to his erstwhile business partners:

Gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The story of wrongs avenged gets better. Because while Vanderbilt's partners are scamming him, the American William Walker is trying to take over Nicaragua. Vanderbilt needs Nicaragua; the gold rush is heating up in California, and Vanderbilt wants to shuttle passengers from the east coast to the west. Without a railroad or a Panama Canal, the quickest way to do this had been to send them around the southern tip of South America. Vanderbilt had another idea: send boats through the Caribbean to Nicaragua, get on the San Juan River at Greytown, follow the San Juan to Lake Nicaragua, use mules to cover a small strip of ground between the Lake and San Juan Del Sur, and dump them out onto the Pacific. From there, the trip up to California is comparatively short.

There will be conflict eventually. On the one side we have Walker, the American "filibuster" (a term meaning something like "treasure-seeking cowboy" before it meant "reading from the phone book for 72 consecutive hours"), hoping to carve out a new nation under his tutelage in South America. On the other we have a ruthless businessman who needs Walker's territory to make his money. While Vanderbilt plots his enemies' destruction, Walker draws thousands upon thousands of Americans down from the north into his private army and names himself president of Nicaragua. How do those thousands of Americans get there? They need to take ships, obviously. The collision course is set.

Unfortunately, Dando-Collins does as little as possible with these promising materials, and by the end of "Tycoon's War" he reminds us how little he's done with them. For instance: one might want to know what motivates Walker to do what he does. Is it money? Fame? Power? You'd think that in a book ostensibly about "America's Most Famous Military Adventurer," his motivations would be weaved into most every page of the book. Yet Dando-Collins saves them for the end, in a couple-page-long chapter entitled "The Protagonists' Motives." Dando-Collins will soon be releasing an edition of the New Testament with an epilogue entitled "Stuff About Jesus."

Dando-Collins wants us to believe that Walker was hugely important within American history. He may well be, but nothing Dando-Collins tells us would suggest so. The best he can come up with is to note that "To this day, there is an historical marker honoring Walker outside the Nashville house where he was born and grew up." Mt. Rushmore it isn't.

The unfortunate reality seems to be that Dando-Collins is a William Walker fanboy. Near "The Protagonists' Motives," we get this: "Throughout Central America today, Walker's name ranks with that of Hitler and Stalin." That is the sole unflattering line about Walker in the book's 342 pages, and it takes 334 pages to get there. The reader is not equipped to understand why Central Americans might view Walker that way.

We can at least hope for solid military history. "Tycoon's War" is a reasonably engaging on that score, and indeed that seems to be the only part of "Tycoon's War" that really interests Dando-Collins. He mostly lets the Walker biography, the Vanderbilt biography, the broader story of the U.S.'s role in this hemisphere, and the clash-of-titans aspects drop.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Generally unknown history that is told very well, April 28, 2010

By 

Israel Drazin (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (Hardcover)

In 1849, fifty-five year old shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the richest men in America. When he died in 1877, Vanderbilt had more money than the US Treasury and was the richest man in the country. Americans remember Vanderbilt's name today, but very few Americans remember the adventurer William Walker, his rival, who was the most famous man in America during his day.
This was the age of expansion. The US had just won the war with Mexico the previous year during which the country took half a million Mexican acres. Now Nicaragua interested several countries. The French wanted to build a canal across it from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The British landed military forces in Nicaragua to take control of the area and introduce their influence into Central America. This was also the time of the California gold rush when many people lost their lives when they traveled across the US by land.
Vanderbilt proposed to the US government that the government get him the right from Nicaragua to build a canal across their country so that Americans and others could go from the east to the west safely. However, Vanderbilt was opposed by the very talented young American idealist, William Walker, who was determined to conquer and rule over a Central American Empire. Walker would become the president of Nicaragua for awhile, but ultimately failed to accomplish his goal. The two powerful men, both opportunists, clashed in battles that resulted in the death of thousands of Americans.
This book is a well-written history, with much interesting information, and it reads like a drama.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Historical Insights, September 14, 2009

By 

S. Taylor "Los Altos Reader" (Los Altos, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (Hardcover)

The "Tycon's War" offers an entertaining historical voyage into a fascinating era of American/Central American history. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for both its historical and entertainment value. Well written and well researched, the book provides many great stories to recount to friends and family.