Summary of Ron Chernow's Titan

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Ron Chernow's Titan in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.—the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. In the course of his nearly 98 years, Rockefeller was known as both a rapacious robber baron, whose Standard Oil Company rode roughshod over an industry, and a philanthropist who donated money lavishly to universities and medical centers. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists—and an utter enigma.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Rockefeller’s private papers, Chernow reconstructs his subjects’ troubled origins (his father was a swindler and a bigamist) and his single-minded pursuit of wealth. But he also uncovers the profound religiosity that drove him “to give all I could”; his devotion to his father; and the wry sense of humor that made him the country’s most colorful codger. Titan is a magnificent biography—balanced, revelatory, elegantly written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638155287

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights from Chapters 1-3

#1

The most extensive quest for John D. Rockefeller’s ancestors leads to a ninth-century French family known as the Roquefeuilles, who supposedly lived in a castle.

#2

The German lineage of the Rockefellers, on the other hand, can be traced back to the early 1600s in the Rhine valley.

#3

Johann Peter Rockefeller, a miller, gathered his wife and five children in 1723 and sailed to Philadelphia. He settled on a farm in Somerville and then Amwell, New Jersey, where he prospered and amassed significant landholdings.

#4

His descendant John Davison Rockefeller, the son of William and Eliza Rockefeller, was born in 1839 in upstate New York. The family had to live a frugal lifestyle, in a small house made of hand-hewn beams and timbers.

#5

William was not an exemplary family man – he had a girlfriend named Nancy Brown, and he brought her into the family house as a housekeeper, with whom he started having illegitimate children.

#6

The family relocated in 1843 to an Ohio town named Moravia, where William started a logging business. The business did well, and their situation started ameliorating. Meanwhile, John watched and learned.

#7

William never got his hands dirty with farm work, which he despised as beneath his dignity. During his still regular wanderings, he employed Hiram Odell, a railroad worker, to work the farm and look