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Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Hardcover – September 19, 2023
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A NPR Best Book of the Year
The number one New York Times bestselling authors of Vanderbilt return with another riveting history of a legendary American family, the Astors, and how they built and lavished their fortune.
The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story—of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention.
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society.
The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic, one of many shocking and unexpected twists in the family’s story.
In this unconventional, page-turning historical biography, featuring black-and-white and color photographs, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America—offering a window onto the making of America itself.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateSeptember 19, 2023
- Dimensions6 x 1.12 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062964704
- ISBN-13978-0062964700
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From the Publisher
Astor | Vanderbilt | |
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Customer Reviews |
4.3 out of 5 stars
2,753
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4.3 out of 5 stars
19,190
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Price | $19.99$19.99 | $8.49$8.49 |
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A lively, well-written and satisfyingly detailed account of the family that came to own New York. . . . Astor provides a fascinating history of the city, from the populist riots in 1849 stirred up by a production of Macbeth at the Astor Opera House to the gay scene that thrived for decades in the bar of the Astor Hotel that once stood on Broadway at 44th Street.” — Wall Street Journal
“A must-read. . . . Cooper and Howe dig into one of the United States' most influential families and a parable of capitalism, commerce, and greed that established an American way of life.” — Entertainment Weekly
"A rich history about the ways in which the very name of the mega-rich weakens through ubiquity and hubris." — Chicago Tribune
“A worthy companion to superstar journalist Cooper's and novelist Howe's bestselling account of Cooper's own family, Vanderbilt. Once again, the authors offer an engaging, multigenerational story that is factual and nuanced. . . . Another nonfiction winner from the duo.” — Booklist (starred review)
“This meticulously detailed family saga is also rich with insight into U.S. history, including revealing chapters on topics ranging from mid-19th-century populist sentiments concerning Shakespeare (the Astor Opera House staged a performance of Macbeth that was widely reviled for its high ticket price) and the early 20th-century gay scene (when the Astor Hotel became a queer rendezvous spot). History buffs and readers fascinated by the rich and famous should take note.” — Publishers Weekly
“A brisk, entertaining history of the Astors, a storied dynasty that left an indelible mark on New York’s streets, parks, museums, libraries, hotels, and a famous gay bar. . . . A spirited saga of glitz and greed.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Splendid. . . . haunting and beautifully written. . . . This is a terrific book.” — Washington Post on Vanderbilt
"An incredible story." — People on Vanderbilt
“A dramatic tale expertly told of rapacious ambition, decadent excess, and covert and overt tyranny and trauma. . . . With resplendent detail, the authors capture the gasp-eliciting extravagance of the Vanderbilt Gilded Age mansions. . . . With its intrinsic empathy and in-depth profiles of women, this is a distinctly intimate, insightful, and engrossing chronicle of an archetypal, self-consuming American dynasty. . . . Irresistible.” — Booklist (starred review) on Vanderbilt
“Marked by meticulous research and deep emotional insight, this is a memorable chronicle of American royalty.” — Publishers Weekly on Vanderbilt
About the Author
Anderson Cooper is an anchor at CNN and a correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes. He has won twenty Emmys and numerous other major journalism awards. Cooper is the author of the New York Times bestseller Astor (with Katherine Howe)and three number one New York Times bestsellers: The Rainbow Comes and Goes, Dispatches from the Edge, and Vanderbilt (with Katherine Howe). He lives in New York with his two sons.
Katherine Howe is a novelist and a historian of America. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, The House of Velvet and Glass, and (with Anderson Cooper)Vanderbilt and Astor; the young adult novels Conversion and The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen; and she was the editor of The Penguin Book of Witches. She lives with her family in New England.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper; First Edition (September 19, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062964704
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062964700
- Item Weight : 1.23 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.12 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #8,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Anderson Cooper joined CNN in 2001 and has anchored his own program, Anderson Cooper 360°, since March 2003. Cooper has won 18 Emmys and numerous other major journalism awards. He lives in New York with his son, Wyatt.
Katherine Howe is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian and novelist. She is the co-author with Anderson Cooper of the #1 New York Times bestselling Vanderbilt: the Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. Their latest collaboration is Astor: the Rise and Fall of an American Fortune, and her newest novel is A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself. Her fiction has been translated into over twenty languages. She lives and sails in New England with her family, where she is at work on her next novel. She also puts hot sauce on everything.
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First I feel that Cooper is holding a personal vendetta against the Astor family. He makes it quite clear when discussing Brooke Astor's (apparent) snubbing of him when he was not with his mother at Mortimer's. As a seasoned journalist I would think Cooper wouldn't be so biased, but its all over the book. Clearly in Cooper's eyes the Vanderbilts were better than the Astors. I am sure (and I hope) that IRL Cooper doesn't still hold this apparent grudge against a family, but by reading the book you would think we were back in The Gilded Age and Anderson was not invited to Mrs. Astor's balls.
My larger issue is that a book that for me should have been like reading my favorite type of candy this book was very dull at points. There are countless pages about things that I feel could have been explained in one or two pages (such as the massacre at the Astor House). I was shocked to find some parts of this book tedious for me to get through.
If you don't know much about the Astor Family this does give you a full picture of the family origins and how they got where they got to, but I'd probably recommend something a little less biased.
I am not sorry I got this book. It's a great package, and the authors are quite talented. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Still will buy future books by Cooper in the hopes they keep me as interested as his prior works.
So well researched, I was enthralled.
The original John Jacob Astor was actually a horrible man, slaughtering beavers and other animals on his way across the continent after arriving penniless on our shores from Walldorf, Germany. His greed knew no end. While living extravagantly in a posh NYC neighborhood and buying up New York real estate, the tenements in which poor immigrants lived were on land owned by him. Rent was impossibly high and suffering was rampant. But the Astors cared little.
Subsequent generations of Astors were eccentric, strange and very greedy.
Too much money harbors great resentment on future generations. I have actually seen the effects in people I have known.
Top reviews from other countries
My greatest issue with it however is the glaring historical inaccuracies. The greatest example is that of John Jacob Astor IV, the most famous Astor of them all, the great man who lost his life on the Titanic. Due to this association, much as been written about him and his death, all which can be found through a simple glance at Encyclopaedia Titanica. Thus I was shocked at the inaccuracies in this book regarding his final days.
The Astors did NOT board Titanic at Southampton. They boarded in Cherbourg, France.
But most irritating of all is the blind repetition of the ‘falling funnel’ myth that was debunked years ago.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR IV WAS NOT KILLED BY A FALLING FUNNEL.
There was no ‘blunt force trauma.’ His body was not crushed and sooty beyond recognition. In fact his body was almost perfectly preserved – ‘The features were unharmed, the face being only slightly discolored by water.’ (Buffalo Morning Express, 1 May 1912)
I probably sound pedantic but I’m sorry blatant inaccuracies like this are unacceptable, especially when the subject has been written on extensively.
(Disappointed in the front cover too. Ava Willing is not deserving of it.)
Overall, worth a look at but know that there are far better biographies of the Astor family out there – Derek Wilson’s The Astors and John D. Gates’ The Astor Family are two that come to mind.