Description
From bobbin boy to billionaire — the definitive Carnegie. From a dirt-poor childhood in Dunfermline, Scotland, to the top of American industry, Andrew Carnegie’s life reads like the classic American dream — and David Nasaw’s acclaimed 2006 biography remains the definitive account. Drawing on deep archival research, Nasaw traces the journey from bobbin boy in a Pennsylvania cotton mill to the steel magnate who built Carnegie Steel and became one of the richest men in history.
What sets it apart is its honesty about Carnegie’s contradictions: the capitalist who crushed union strikes yet gave away nearly his entire fortune, funding thousands of public libraries, universities, and the New York concert hall that still bears his name. Nasaw, a CUNY Graduate Center historian, weighs the man’s ruthless business tactics against his genuine conviction that the wealthy owed society a debt.
A 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist, this is a richly detailed, deeply readable portrait of a complicated figure whose ideas about wealth and philanthropy still shape debate today. Essential for anyone fascinated by the Gilded Age, American business history, or the making of a legend.
From a dirt-poor childhood in Dunfermline, Scotland, to the very top of American industry, Andrew Carnegie’s life reads like the classic American dream — and David Nasaw’s acclaimed 2006 biography remains the definitive account of how he lived it. Drawing on deep archival research, Nasaw traces Carnegie’s journey from a teenage bobbin boy in a Pennsylvania cotton mill to the steel magnate who built Carnegie Steel and became one of the richest men in history.
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nWhat sets this biography apart is its honesty about Carnegie’s contradictions: the self-made capitalist who crushed union strikes yet gave away nearly his entire fortune, funding thousands of public libraries, universities, and the New York concert hall that still bears his name. Nasaw, a historian at the CUNY Graduate Center, weighs the man’s ruthless business tactics against his genuine conviction that the wealthy owed society a debt.
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nA finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, this is a richly detailed, deeply readable portrait of a complicated figure whose ideas about wealth and philanthropy still shape debates today. Essential reading for anyone fascinated by the Gilded Age, American business history, or the making of a legend.
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