John D. Rockefeller was the quintessential American success story of the Gilded Age. The son of a con artist, he built a monopolistic empire through ruthlessness, guile and underhand tactics, becoming the richest man in the world and arguably the most reviled.
Rockefeller's Standard Oil dominated the petroleum business. Among his perfidies was colluding with railroads, which carried Standard's oil at big discounts and paid Rockefeller a fee for every barrel of competitors' oil they transported. By 1911 the Supreme Court ordered the Standard Oil trust to be broken up.
His immense charitable giving did not wash away the stain of his crimes during his lifetime, as he had hoped, but did burnish his family name after his death.
Ron Chernow's monumental biography, "Titan", offers an unparalleled glimpse into one of the most private, inscrutable figures in the modern history of business and finance.
Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain.