Matthew Josephson "The Robber Barons" Limited Edition, Leather Bound Collector's Edition [Sealed]

A Leather-Bound Limited Edition of the classic 1934 book that chronicles the rise of powerful American capitalists.

Easton Press, Norwalk CT. 2000 "The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists 1861-1901" by Matthew Josephson. Includes original collector's notes. Luxuriously bound in full genuine leather. Limited Edition. Sealed without any visible flaws.

The Leather-Bound Library of American History.

Matthew Josephson (1899-1978) received a Guggenheim fellowship and was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He is the author of, among other books, Al Smith: Hero of the Cities, winner of the Van Wyck Brooks prize for biography and history.

The Robber Barons

John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick... their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to banks. But who were the people behind the legends, and how did they rise to their positions of vast wealth and influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century?

The Robber Barons is a classic work on the financiers and industrialists of the Gilded Age, who shaped their own era as well as the future of the United States–"not a mere series of biographies but a genuine history" (The New York Times Book Review).

The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson is a classic 1934 book that chronicles the rise of powerful American capitalists like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt during the Gilded Age (1861-1901). It's a historical narrative that details how these financiers and industrialists transformed the U.S. economy through aggressive business practices, focusing on finance, industry, and transportation, and exploring the social and political impact of their immense power.

Key aspects of the book:

Subject: The book profiles major figures of the era, including J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Jay Gould.

Focus: It examines the shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one, highlighting the concentration of economic power and the conquest of political institutions by these new barons.

Genre: It's considered a classic work of American history, business history, and biography, blending social, economic, and political history.

Significance: Josephson's work is noted for its vivid narrative and for presenting the stories not just as individual biographies, but as a history of the era, showing the "great contradiction" of progress and misery that resulted from their actions.

Prize-winning historian and biographer Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons is the story of the Gilded Age's giant American capitalists who seized economic power after the Civil War and altered the shape of American life forever.

The definitive book on the rise and power of early American capitalists, The Robber Barons examines the careers of such masters of finance and industry as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, E. H. Harriman, and Henry Clay Frick. In a fascinating narrative, mixing social, economic, and political history, Josephson shows that under the command of these industry titans, the country progressed from a mainly agrarian-mercantile society to an economy propelled predominantly by mass production.

"With great verve and a fine sense of its dramatic values, what [Josephson] has written is not a mere series of biographies but a genuine history, with the stories of the great American capitalists skillfully interwoven, and with an eye always on the broader social background."—New York Times Book Review

Features

Includes all the classic Easton Press qualities:

* Premium Leather
* Silk Moire Endleaves
* Distinctive Cover Design
* Hubbed Spine, Accented in Real 22KT Gold
* Satin Ribbon Page Marker
* Gilded Page Edges
* Long-lasting, High Quality Acid-neutral Paper
* Smyth-sewn Pages for Strength and Durability
* Beautiful Illustrations

About the Author

Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 – March 13, 1978) was an American historian, biographer and journalist. He authored works on French novelists of the 19th century, and on U.S. political and economic history of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He popularized the term "robber baron" in his best-selling 1934 book The Robber Barons about the first American tycoons.