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The First Tycoon

The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

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The First Tycoon

Written by: T.J. Stiles
Narrated by: Mark Deakins
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About this listen

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism.

Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. Lincoln consulted him on steamship strategy during the Civil War; Jay Gould was first his uneasy ally and then sworn enemy; and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, was his spiritual counselor. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation - in fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live in today.

In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore’s personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models. He was an unschooled fistfighter who came to command the respect of New York’s social elite. And he was a father who struggled with a gambling-addicted son, a husband who was loving yet abusive, and, finally, an old man who was obsessed with contacting the dead.

The First Tycoon is the exhilarating story of a man and a nation maturing together: The powerful account of a man whose life was as epic and complex as American history itself.

©2009 T.J. Stiles (P)2009 Random House
Historical Professionals & Academics Small Business & Entrepreneurship United States American History Transportation Railroad Gilded Age Business New York War
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What the critics say

“A penetrating portrait of a complex, self-made titan.” -Citation for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography 2010

“With deep and imaginative research and graceful writing, T. J. Stiles’s The First Tycoon tells the extraordinary story of a brutally competitive man who was hard to love but irresistibly interesting as a truly pivotal historical figure. With few letters and no diaries, and with layers of legend to carve through, Stiles captures Cornelius Vanderbilt as a person and as a force who shaped the transportation revolution, all but invented unbridled American capitalism, and left his mark not only all over New York City but, for better or worse, all over our economic landscape.” -Citation for the National Book Award in Nonfiction 2009

“T.J. Stiles presents the magnate as a man in full.” -Boston Globe Best Books of 2009

What listeners say about The First Tycoon

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Everything you wanted to know

This is the first of three books I wanted to read about some of the first big moneymakers in North America (Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and JP Morgan). I was hoping to find some long lost knowledge about doing business the "old-fashioned way". Well, it's just the same old story: hard work, supplemented with a little cheating, conniving, sabotage and vicious competitiveness. It was a looong book, but thorough and pretty interesting. Lots of info about the family dynamics, too. The narration was well done. I listened at 1.15 and it was fine. I recommend it if the topic interests you.

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An epic life indeed

The longest audiobook I've listened to yet, but one that I couldn't put down.
You're left in awe by what one man can accomplish in his lifetime.

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Amazing story told very well.

Its so amazing that things he did for the first time are so deeply entrenched in our world still in 2023!!

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