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 enlarge | Author: David Cannadine
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy Used: $6.24
You Save: $28.76 (82%)
New (33) Used (30) Collectible (2) from $6.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 322905
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 800
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 2
ISBN: 0679450327
Dewey Decimal Number: 336.73092
EAN: 9780679450320
ASIN: 0679450327
Publication Date: October 3, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good - Free shipping confirmation & tracking. 100% of your purchase helps Goodwill create jobs and change lives. A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). May have usage wear, reading creases, writing inside, bent pages, notes, highlighting, stains, light damage, exposure to water and/or stickers. If DVD/CD with external signs of wear, but one that continues to play perfectly. The item, inclusions, box or jewel case may be missing, damaged or marked but what is included remains complete and legible. Has not been tested but appears playable.
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| Customer Reviews:
Very Well Done Business History September 7, 2007
A very detailed history of the Mellon family (lots of time spent on the father), but more importantly, this is a description of the rise of American-style capitalism. David Cannadine is a historian with obviously great research skills. This audio book tops 36 hours and I found every minute of it to be interesting. I'm so sick of journalist writing shallow books on topics they only have a passing interest in (and zero research ability beyond talking to someone who just so happens to want to sell something). Prof. Cannadine says the book was more than ten years in the making--I just wish we had more quality business history like this.
Acquisition and accumulation June 29, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Born prior to the Civil War, one of five surviving sons of Judge Mellon, Andrew had a close relationship with his father. Pittsburgh was growing. Andrew Mellon's metier was finance. He began his career in banking at age seventeen in 1874 at a time of economic decline. T. Mellon and Sons had difficulty meeting the claims of depositors. Bad times were used to gain real estate hoildings. The bank was stabilized. Andrew developed his business connection with Henry Clay Frick. By 1882 Andrew Mellon had become the acknowledged leader of his generation of Mellons. Mellon mining, banking, and real estate holdings expanded. Ventures were national in scope.
There was an exceptional boom, 1898-1900. Andrew Mellon, middle-aged bachelor, had a drive to acquire, substituting it for intimacy and personal commitments. He was ambitious and aggressive. In 1899 Mellon and Frick founded the Union Steel Co. When Andrew Mellon married in his forties, his young English wife, Nora, was appalled and bewildered at conditions in Pittsburgh. She did not like the dirt and squalor. Tempermentally the couple was unsuited. Andrew was cold, repressed.
In 1902 the Mellon National Bank came into being. By the mid 1900's Andrew was the most significant economic actor in western Pennsylvania. Financial self-interest caused him to favor monopolies. The failure of his marriage in 1909 was an unprecedented crisis for Andrew. Divorce might mean social disgrace. When the divorce was granted in 1912 Andrew emerged the winner. Andrew was successful by making business collaborators successful too. Disloyalty and failure were punished.
By 1915, age sixty, Andrew was withdrawing from work. Marriage woes and anti-business progressivism tended to make him discouraged. He had, nevertheless, a continuing interest in business. He came to believe that inventors and scientists were critical to continued wealth creation and, as a consequence, he supported the program of industrial chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. The Mellon Institute was Andrew's first large-scale philanthropy.
Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury through three administrations. The stock market crash of 1929 was followed by the world-wide Great Depression. In 1930 Mellon had to admit economic prospects were not good. The winter of 1930-1931 was bitter. His reputation in Pittsburgh collapsed in the second half of 1931. In 1932 Mellon spoke of a grave emergency. There were budget deficits. Andrew was being regarded by others as out of touch and out of date. Hoover offered Mellon the London embassy to enable him to leave his cabinet post.
After 1929 Mellon re-entered the art market as a buyer. He was able to buy masterpieces from the Hermitage. Roosevelt in office disavowed the interests of the financial titans. His activities during the first one hundred days of his presidency were anathema to Andrew Mellon. In the end Mellon created the National Gallery of Art. The gift was announced in 1937.
This is a fine and lengthy book. The portions of the book concerning art collecting are of supreme interest to the general reader, (even to those whose grasp of business and finance history is not secure and may find other sections hard-going). The story of the life and times of Andrew Mellon could be said to be straight out of a Dickens novel.
 Remarkable Man, Remarkable Book April 22, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Hat's off to Cannadine for delivering an illuminating, compelling, superbly written bio about an obviously intelligent, gifted, determined and generous public as well as private citizen-leader-benefactor.
Excellent biography April 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
David Cannadine did fabulous work researching the life of Andrew Mellon. I was amazed at the depth of detail and the amount of work that had to have gone into this project. The book discusses Mellon's business acumen, his strained personal relationships and his love for collecting great works of art. The latter culminated in the establishment of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I did not know that he was Secretary of the Treasury. There is a great review of FDR and the sea change America went through in reaction to the Great Depression.
Despite a heavy dose of the politics surrounding business, labor, competing economic and social theories and class related arguments, Cannadine does a marvelous job of remaining objective. He is not wholly detached from these discussions. But he does present strong arguments coming from both left and right. I learned a great deal about western Pennsylvania and about an important era in American history. The book is well written and captivating.
One of the best biographies I have read April 2, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
While a book of numerous pages, I have to say that I could hardly put this book down. As an Australian, I am ever fascinated by the individualism and personal drive of those individuals who made America what it is today. Both Andrew and his father 'The Judge' prove what can be achieved if you have the belief and self-drive to take on the risk to achieve what would be considered beyond most peoples' expections of themselves. What this book has lead me to is an increased fascination with Roosevelt and tbe New Deal and where it has ultimately lead the US. Would the US be a better or worse off place today without either of these types of individuals? I imagine that it is probably a draw but it is interesting to speculate where the US might have been today had Andrew's belief in letting the Great Depression sort itself out been left to do just that.
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