Of all the tycoons who dominated American capitalism during the booming decades before the First World War, there was one whose exploits so towered above the rest that his name became virtually synonymous with American business: John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913). Bankers, railroad czar, industrialist, financier, philanthropist, yachtsman, ladies' man, and dandy, Morgan was king to a handful of millionaire barons who controlled the country's wealth in an era of little government regulation - a larger-than-life character who set an indelible stamp on the society and economy of his time. Physically imposing, blunt-spoken, with piercing eyes that defied one to stare at his florid nose (of which he was acutely self-conscious), Morgan had legendary appetites for money and power, beautiful art and beautiful women, that he spared no expense to satisfy, caring little for what the public and press thought of his extravagance. On board his fabulous floating palaces, the various yachts he called Corsair after Henry Morgan's pirate ship, he often entertained his guests in lavish style - kings and emperors, bishops and barons, actresses and socialites. But where it really counted, among the brokerage firms and banking houses of Wall Street, Morgan's word was as good as gold and his name whispered in reverential tones; for on more than one occasion his solid reputation had been the only thing standing between millions of panicked depositors and stockholders and total financial collapse. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of a prosperous storekeeper, Morgan began his career discreditably during the Civil War, speculating in questionable gold and weapons sales that earned him great profit on materials urgently needed for the war effort. Soon after, he began acquiring railroads, smashing his competitors Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, then engaging in a stock war against magnate E.H. Harriman that nearly ruined Wall Street and that eventually gave Morgan control of major railroad lines. His formation of the Northern Securities Corporation brought Morgan into direct conflict with Theodore Roosevelt, who made him the first real target of antitrust legislation, even though the financier's money had a short time before bailed out Grover Cleveland and the United States Treasury from a potentially devastating gold crisis. In 1901 Morgan shrewdly bought out Andrew Carnegie and formed United States Steel, the world's first billion-dollar corporation. At the height of his dominance, Morgan became one of the most ambitious of American collectors, making frequent forays to Europe for paintings, antique furniture, rare books, artifacts, and anything else he fancied, including women such as Lady Victoria Sackville and others whose beauty and intelligence intrigued him. In this authoritative, balanced, highly readable biography, Andrew Sinclair brings a fresh perspective to the remarkable financial coups, acquisitive adventures, and amorous pursuits of this man he calls "the golden calf of the gilded age of American capitalism," a magnetic character whose rise to plutocracy epitomized one of the most rambunctious eras in American history. - Dust jacket.