Seven men. Seven fortunes. One question they all had to answer: how do you find your footing when the world changes faster than you can keep up?
In 1901, journalist Orison Swett Marden sat down with America's greatest businessmen and asked them how they succeeded. The result was a bestseller ? and today, it's almost completely forgotten.
Titans of the Gilded Age brings seven of those stories back to life: Marshall Field, Alexander Graham Bell, Philip D. Armour, John Wanamaker, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie. But this isn't a simple reprint ? every reprint on the market today is. This is a fully modernized, critically annotated edition that:
- Tells each man's real story ? poverty, breakthrough, fortune, and the mistakes history often leaves out
- Doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable parts: Field's hostility to labor, Bell's controversial legacy, Carnegie's bloody strikebreaking at Homestead
- Closes every chapter with "What Can We Learn in 2026?" ? concrete, practical lessons for navigating your own career, business, and money in an age of AI and automation
Whether you're building a business, changing careers, or just love a great rags-to-riches story with real depth, these seven lives still have something to teach you ? a century later.
