On The Deal Maker: How William C. Durant Made General Motors: "A well-written biography."-New York Times On Stanwyck: The Life and Times of Barbara Stanwyck: "Madsen's admirably researched, insightful portrait of her aloof nature . . . reveals she was always torn between her wish to give of herself and her need to be in control."-Christian Science Monitor On Chanel: A Woman of Her Own: "Fascinating . . . . Takes the reader behind the coromandel veneers of Chanel's life."-New York Times Book Review "Carefully knits together the complex pattern of Chanel's complicated existence. It's not an easy task."-Toronto Globe and Mail On Gloria and Joe: "Axel Madsen finally gives the public a fascinating chronicle of the romance that could have ruined more than two careers."-Dallas Morning News On Cousteau: "Both critical and understanding. And it is exceptionally readable. Readers are well advised to take the plunge."-Chicago Tribune On Malraux: "Will stand as the best of more than a dozen books about Malraux in print."-Kansas City Star For much of our nation's history, the name Astor has been synonymous with great wealth. Madsen (Chanel, Gloria and Joe) now adds his account of the life and times of the nation's first multimillionaire. Astor was born in Germany in 1763 and came to the New World at age 20 with a shipment of musical instruments as his stake. By the time he died in 1848, he had made separate fortunes in the fur trade, the China trade, and New York real estate, with a few bucks from opium trading thrown in. But his really big money came from land, which he purchased in large tracts in and around the burgeoning city of New York and leased out on long contracts. By the late 1880s, his descendants were collecting $9 million per year in rent from the city alone! This work is based on such published sources as Kenneth W. Porter's John Jacob Astor, Businessman (1931) and John Upton Terrell's Furs by Astor (1963) but does have both footnotes and a list of sources. Unfortunately, there are many awkwardly constructed sentences and geographic errors; otherwise, this would have been an acceptable public library purchase. Patrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll., La Crosse Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Fur trader, slumlord, war profiteer, opium dealer, liquor salesman. That's the rap on the first of America's legendary business titans, John Jacob Astor. The biography, John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire by Axel Madsen, records how in 1784, he arrived in America after an unusually long crossing of the Atlantic: He was at sea for 4 months. He was 20 years old with $25 in his pocket. At the time of his death, a few months shy of his 85th birthday, he was worth upward of $20 million and was the richest man in the USA. According to Axel Madsen (who has written 15 biographies on famous figures, such as Joe Kennedy and Gloria Swanson), Astor embodied the American Dream His desire to reinvent himself propelled him to levels of financial success few could attain. By all historical accounts (the vast majority supplied by the New York Public Library archives), Astor was ruthless and stingy, but he had a flair for business. Sounds like a viable strategy. And he had an uncanny ability for high-tailing it out of a business before it went bust. A poor German immigrant, Astor made his way to New York and rapidly stamped his mark on an economy that was taking off. He seemingly glided from the fur trade, bolstered by selling liquor to the Indians, to shipping opium to China, to Manhattan real estate (his greatest coup). He is described as a slum lord. Fairly unsavory stuff, but worth a fortune. Money was his passion, and that's all that mattered to him. He understood the impermanence of success and understood the volatility of the markets and how to anticipate change. Worthy instincts, even today. The fascinating thing about Astor is that, regardless of how one feels about his business practices, he was one of the first businessmen to imagine the world as a global economy. He went for it with gusto. To get a snapshot of how rich he was in his heyday, the author gives us this fine example: In 1844, the average New Yorker earned $1 a week. That year, Astor gave his granddaughter Laura a wedding gift of $250,000, conservatively worth $50 million today. The author reveals that it was really his wife, Sarah Todd, who came with a $300 dowry and a free place to live with her family, who started him on his financial way. Her wealth allowed him to quit hawking bread on the streets of lower Manhattan, his first job in this country. His work schedule is admirable, given the hours many of today's workers put in. He would have breakfast at 9a.m., leave the office at 2 in the afternoon, have dinner at 3, then savor a glass of beer and three games of checkers each evening, according to Madsen. Astor offers a historical insight into a vibrant, growing