Mellon: An American Life
by David Cannadine
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Book Summary Information
Author: David CannadineReader: John H. Mayer
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2006-10-03
ISBN: 0739340239
Publisher: Random House Audio
Book Reviews of Mellon: An American Life
Book Review: FORTUNE SMILED ON MELLON - LIFE, AT TIMES, DID NOT
Summary: 5 Stars
Character actor John H. Mayer gives a sonorous, highly listenable reading to this story of the life of one of America's greatest financiers. It was a life marked by the amassing of a vast fortune, marriage to a woman two decades his junior, political office, and the establishment of Washington's National Gallery of Art.
Mellon's life has been examined before but perhaps not in such great detail (621 pages). Beginning with his boyhood in Pittsburgh the author traces the evolution of a shy, rather retiring individual who had an inordinate gift for recognizing the potential in nascent American industries. In fact, many credit him with being the dominant force in making our country an industrial power.
Although he was known for keeping his own counsel, he became active politically serving as Secretary of the Treasury under Harding, Coolidge and Hoover.
His marriage at the age of 43 to the nineteen-year-old Nora McMullen ended in an acrimonious very public divorce in 1910. This was surely a great embarrassment to the reticent Mellon. It was later that he gave his personal art collection and countless small fortunes to establish the National Gallery.
For those interested in America's corporate history Mellon is a fascinating study. While the man may be unknowable his work is not thanks to prodigious research and time line narrative by David Cannadine.
- Gail Cooke
Summary of Mellon: An American Life
A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each.Following a boyhood in nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to become one of America?s greatest financiers. Across an unusually diverse range of enterprises, he would build a legendary personal fortune, tracking America?s course to global economic supremacy. Personal happiness, however, eluded him. He had been bred to do one thing, and that he did with brilliant and innovative entrepreneurship.
Mellon?s wealth and name allowed him to dominate Pennsylvania politics, and under presidents Harding, Coolidge, and finally Hoover, he made the federal government run like a business. But this man of straightforward conservative politics was no politician. He would be hailed as the architect of the Roaring Twenties, but, staying too long, would be blamed for the Great Depression, eventually to find himself a broken idol.
The issues Andrew W. Mellon confronted?concerning government, business, influence, the individual and the public good?remain at the center of our national discourse to this day. Indeed, the positions he steadfastly held reemerged relatively intact with the Reagan revolution, having lain dormant since the New Deal. David Cannadine?s magisterial biography brings to life a towering, controversial figure, casting new light on our history and the evolution of our public values.
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