ASTOR by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe

John Jacob Astor emigrated to New York in the late eighteenth century and built an empire in the fur-trading business. In the early nineteenth century, he began flipping his fortune into New York City real estate and amassed wealth in large part through rents collected from the downtrodden working class. At one time the richest family in the world, for four generations Astor descendants lived excessively large and wielded social power with an iron fist in New York City. Their hey-day was the Gilded Age, then wealth dissipated as direct descendants of John Jacob dwindled and Brooke Astor, who married into the family, distributed much of the remaining fortune to charity. The saga is a collaboration, and one can imagine CNN anchor Anderson Cooper delivering the book’s fierce social commentary on the wealth building and ostentatious lifestyles of John Jacob’s descendants, while historian Katherine Howe provides the research. Many interesting insights are offered on the Astor real estate model and New York City taking shape due to decisions and motivations of the wealthy, privileged few. The book is divided into two parts, “Rise” and “Fall,” and tells the tale in part through anecdotal sketches of selected family members. My quibble would be that, at times, chronology bounces around, in a somewhat distracting fashion. Overall, Astor is a compelling read on a well-known American family dynasty, and ultimately a cautionary tale on the dangers of unchecked accumulation of wealth by a privileged few.