Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
Buy on AmazonThe number one New York Times bestselling authors of Vanderbilt return with another riveting history of a legendary American family, the Astors, and how they built and lavished their fortune. The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story--of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention. From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate.…
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"The Astor family made its money in beaver trapping, but the family is perhaps most known for its political and cultural influence. The prominent American family helped develop New York City with multiple real estate holdings, and the Astors were mainstays of Gilded Age society and had the most famous death on the Titanic. As with most other ultrawealthy Gilded Age families, the money that was made by one or two generations dwindled over the years and is now mostly gone (see Anderson Cooper’s 2021 book on his ancestors, the Vanderbilts). The book details the often ruthless ways members of the family made and spent their fortune and how it led at times to unhappiness and greed. Money can’t buy you everything."
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