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1. John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire by Axel Madsen | |
Hardcover: 304
Pages
(2001-01-19)
list price: US$35.00 -- used & new: US$7.39 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0471385034 Average Customer Review: Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
Editorial Review Book Description On Stanwyck: The Life and Times of Barbara Stanwyck: On Chanel: A Woman of Her Own: On Gloria and Joe: On Cousteau: On Malraux: Customer Reviews (7)
JOHN ASTOR
Very Interesting. Born in relative poverty in Germany, he immigrated to the United States via England, arriving just after the Revolutionary War ended. Marrying the daughter of the woman who ran his boarding house in New York, his business career moves from the importing of musical instruments to the exporting of furs. So successful is he in the fur business that he is able to finance the establishment of the first American fort in Oregon and supports this effort with his own ships via Cape Horn. Returning east overland, his employees discover the route that subsequently becomes the Oregon Trail! This is a swashbuckler of a story which spans not just the North American Continent but the global economy as it existed in his day as well. Besides furs, he traded tea, seal skins, opium and assorted other commodities through global wars and economic recession on a scale to match the great trading houses of England, the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. He was a man who took huge business risks. A key focus of the book is naturally the fur trade, the dominant wealth generator of its time. This was his first truly big score, one that he engaged in for over 20 years and the primary venture through which he amasses the fortune that provided the investment capital for all the endeavors which would follow. Alex Madsen does an excellent job of fitting Astor within the economic and political time period in which he lived. I have found information here on the fur trade I have found nowhere else. This is a very well researched book; one that not only reports on the biography of the life lived but the history of the time as well. There is a lot to appreciate here. It is a book well worth the time.
This book was good, at best
Excellent history of fur trade, little of Real Estate.
Nobody is Home in Madsen's new Biography |
2. John Jacob Astor: And the Fur Trade (Parker, Lewis K. American Tycoons.) by Lewis K. Parker | |
Library Binding: 24
Pages
(2003-08)
list price: US$19.95 -- used & new: US$19.85 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0823964477 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
3. John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic (Great Lakes Books) by John D. Haeger | |
Hardcover: 365
Pages
(1991-05)
list price: US$39.95 Isbn: 0814318762 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
4. Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprize Beyond the Rocky Mountains by Washington Irving | |
Paperback: 374
Pages
(1982-09-01)
list price: US$27.00 -- used & new: US$18.00 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0803274505 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
Editorial Review Book Description In 1811 a group of American traders built a fort at the mouth of the Columbia River, named Fort Astoria in honor of its financier, John Jacob Astor. Envisioned as the spur of a fur-trading empire, by 1813 the project was a business failure and the fort was surrendered to the British. But in its short life Astoria rendered incalculable benefits to public understanding of the Great Northwest. The exploration of trade routes, the description of various Indian tribes and their customs, and an American claim on the Northwest coast were among many of its legacies. Astor never relinquished his pride in the enterprise and insisted that the West would one day be a dominating factor in national politics. To drive his point home he asked Washington Irving, the country's most renowned and respected author, to transform the papers of Fort Astoria into a unified and readable history. Irving accepted the offer and published Astoria in 1836. From its first appearance--when it was hailed by no less a reviewer than Edgar Allan Poe--to the present day, Astoria has been read as a vivid and fascinating history, comparable indeed to the finest of romances, but rooted in the rough and hardy life of trapping, hunting, and exploration. The text of this edition is approved by the Center for editions of American Authors, Modern Language Association of America. |
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