Andrew Carnegie

This masterful biography of a giant of American industry--the first full life of Andrew Carnegie in more than a generation--triumphantly reveals every aspect of the man's complex personality and fabulous career. So varied were Carnegie's activities in industry, politics, education, philanthropy, and pacificism that his life encompasses much of the general history of the United States and of Great Britain down to the outbreak of World War I. Wall is particularly successful in capturing the excitement of America's dynamic period of business expansion in the generation after the Civil War. Carnegie the man remains at the center of the book--impulsive, haughty, idealistic, warm, loyal, and shrewd--and the drama of his life from telegraph boy to millionaire philanthropist is emphasized. His Scottish background is thoroughly investigated: Wall is concerned throughout with Carnegie's attempts to reconcile his spectacular business success and position in the American plutocracy with the egalitarian and Radical Chartist ideas of his family and youth. Carnegie's letterbooks and early business files, in the possession of the United States Steel Corporation and until now inaccessible to historians, were made available to the author.