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Iron Empires
Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America
Introduction
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "plunges into the battles and escapades of the entrepreneurs . . . who created the national rail system . . . engrossing" (The New York Times).
The Transcontinental Railroad and Its Aftershocks
In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the transcontinental railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America's railways soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and visionaries.
Industry Competition and Its Impact
The vicious competition between empire builders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, and E. H. Harriman sparked stock market frenzies, panics, and crashes; provoked strikes that upended the relationship between management and labor; transformed the nation's geography; and culminated in a ferocious two-man battle that shook the nation's financial markets to their foundations and produced dramatic, lasting changes in the interplay of business and government.
Legacy of the Gilded Age
Spanning four decades and featuring some of the most iconic figures of the Gilded Age, Iron Empires reveals how the robber barons drove the country into the twentieth century—and almost sent it off the rails.
