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.
