Books about Renehan from Amazon.com

The first modern biography of an American financial giant.

Using previously unreleased archives, Edward J. Renehan Jr. narrates the compelling life of Cornelius Vanderbilt: willful progenitor of modern American business. Vanderbilt made his initial fortune building ferry and cargo routes for sailing vessels. Then he moved into steamboats and railroads. With the New York Central, Vanderbilt established the nation's first major integrated rail system, linking New York with Boston, Montreal, Chicago, and St. Louis. At the same time, he played a key role in establishing New York as the financial center of the United States. When he died in 1877, Vanderbilt left a fortune that, in today's dollars, would dwarf that of even Bill Gates.

Off Wall Street, Vanderbilt was a hard-drinking egotist and whoremonger devoid of manners or charity. He disinherited most of his numerous children and received an editorial rebuke from Mark Twain for his lack of public giving.

Commodore sheds startling new light on many aspects of Vanderbilt's business and private life including, most notably, the revelation that advancedstage syphilis marred his last years. This is the definitive biography of a man whose influence on American life and commerce towers over all who followed him..
Price: $9.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"[A] revisionist biography of the man whom a London newspaper eulogized as a 'wrecker of industries and an impoverisher of men'.... Mr. Renehan describes [Gould's business deals] with zest." (New York Times)

Though reviled for more than a century as Wall Street's greatest villain, Jay Gould was in fact its most original creative genius. Gould was the robber baron's robber baron, the most astute financial and business strategist of his time and also the most widely hated. In Dark Genius of Wall Street, acclaimed biographer Edward J. Renehan, Jr., combines lively anecdotes with the rich social tapestry of the Gilded Age to paint the portrait of the most talented financial buccaneer of his generation-- and one of the inventors of modern business.

"An informative and entertaining account of no-holds-barred finance in the late 19th century." (Forbes)

"It's the shenanigans that make this book worth reading." (New York Times Book Review)

"A primer for our own dark age of business leaders.... [A] dead-on biography." (Bloomberg News)

"Lively revisionist biography." (Washington Post Book World)

"A fresh, evocative take on the Gilded Age and its brutal brand of business." (Barron's).
Price: $7.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In his The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men." The Rev. Seymour St. John, D.D., (1912-2006) proved the exception to this rule. A gifted scholar, vigorous teacher, intrepid administrator, passionate athlete, and devoted man of the cloth, Seymour was also – as virtually all who knew him agree – a wonderfully gifted individual and, in the final analysis, a truly great man. The profound impact of St. John upon on an entire generation of students during his tenure at Choate – later Choate Rosemary Hall - cannot be overstated. St. John assembled one of the finest faculties in the world, expanded the school's infrastructure and constituency, and cemented Choate's place in the forefront of northeastern preparatory schools. Seymour's friends included I.M. Pei, Jack Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Douglas Dillon, Paul Mellon, George H.W. Bush, and playwright Edward Albee. St. John's uncle, Charles Seymour, was President of Yale (from which Seymour graduated Phi Beta Kappa); his mother a Greek scholar; his father the longtime Headmaster of Choate before Seymour's tenure. Seymour St. John distinguished himself as a naval officer in Europe during World War II. He won a battle star for his participation in D-Day. Later on, he was instrumental in reinvigorating ravaged continental shipping and fishing ports, and otherwise worked to bring order to the abject chaos that was postwar Europe. Ranging in terrain from Wallingfort, Ct. to Haversham, RI, Jupiter Island, Florida, and the far corners of the world, this superb biography, based on private papers held by Seymour's widow Marie L. St. John, chronicles the story of a brilliant and vital man whose life was a blessing not only to himself, but to all whom he encountered..
Price: $28.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A spellbinding study in revolution from the top down". -- New York Times Book Review.
Price: $14.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A dramatic, fascinating–and revisionist–narrative detailing how America’s first family was changed utterly during World War II. First-rate history grounded in scholarship and brought to life by a critically acclaimed author.

From breathless hagiographies to scandal-mongering exposés, no family has generated more bestselling books than the Kennedys. None of them, however, has focused on the watershed period of World War II, when the course of the family and its individual members changed utterly. Now, in an engaging narrative grounded in impeccable scholarship, Edward J. Renehan, Jr., provides a dramatic portrait of years marked by family tensions, heartbreaks, and heroics. It was during this time that tragedy began to haunt the family–Joe Jr.’s death, the untimely widowhood of Kathleen (a.k.a. “Kick”), Rosemary’s lobotomy. But it was also the time in which John F. Kennedy rose above the strictures of the clan and became his own man.

In the late 1930s, the Kennedys settled in London, where Joseph Kennedy, Sr., was serving as ambassador. A virulent anti-Semite and isolationist, Kennedy relentlessly and ruthlessly fought to keep America out of the war in Europe. His behavior as patriarch in many ways mirrored his public style. Though he was devoted to the family, he was also manipulative and autocratic. In re-creating the intense and tension-filled interactions among the family, Renehan offers riveting, often revisionist views of Joseph Sr.; heir apparent Joe Jr.; Kick, the beautiful socialite; and Jack, the complex charmer. He demonstrates that Joe Jr., although much like his father in opinion and character, was driven to volunteer for a deadly mission in large part because of his fury at Jack’s seemingly easy successes. Renehan also delves into why Kick, a good Catholic girl, chose to abandon her religion for the chance to enter the fairytale world of the British aristocracy, only to suffer a horrendous tragedy.

It is Renehan’s reassessment of Jack, however, that is particularly striking. In subtly breaking away from his domineering father over the issue of World War II, Renehan argues, Jack began to forge the character that would eventually take him to the Oval Office. Going behind the familiar (and accurate) image of JFK as a reckless playboy, Renehan shows us a young man of great intelligence, moral courage, and truly astonishing physical bravery..
Price: $2.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1823, President James Monroe expressed his opinion to Congress that European powers should not be permitted to interfere in the affairs of the sovereign states of the Americas. However, in a bit of a twist, the United States did not follow the terms of its own policy. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which effectively allowed the United States to intervene in Latin American affairs and made the region part of its sphere of influence. Students seeking to learn about the specific details behind this influential policy should look no further than "The Monroe Doctrine", one of the insightful titles from the new "Milestones in American History" series..
Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In May 1869, the U.S. railroad network unified when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads came together in Promontory, Utah. "The Transcontinental Railroad" discusses this important milestone in the expansion of the United States and its impact on the nation, both positive and negative. This book tells how the east-west railroad played an integral role in opening western markets to residents of the eastern United States, but it also examines how the railroad led to the demise of many American Indian groups in the West..
Price: $25.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

John Burroughs (1837-1921) emerged from an obscure boyhood in the Catskill Mountains to write more than thirty books, create the genre of the nature essay, and become the preeminent nature writer of his day..
Price: $4.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]