THE GILDED LEAF: TRIUMPH, TRAGEDY, AND TOBACCO: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune, by Patrick Reynolds and Tom Shachtman THE GILDED LEAF is the riveting, dramatic saga of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco family, one of America’s richest and most intensely private clans. R.J. was the original founder of the company […]
Rereadings: Machiavelli’s The Prince, Part I
Youth is wasted on the young. Really? That’s one of those myths – “If you build it they will come” is another – that wormed its way into our culture without our giving it enough thought. The young do appreciate their youth; they don’t care for certain other aspects of life, perhaps because they lack […]
Torpedoed!
Torpedoed: An American Businessman’s True Story of Secrets, Betrayal, Imprisonment in Russia, and the Battle to Set Him Free. By Edmond D. Pope and Tom Shachtman It was the year 2000. Edmond D. Pope, former U.S. Naval Intelligence officer, then a private businessman, was in Russia looking for new technology to import to the United […]
Skyscraper Dreams
SKYSCRAPER DREAMS: The Great Real Estate Dynasties of New York SKYSCRAPER DREAMS is the ground-breaking portrait of the visionary real estate moguls who created New York’s awe-inspiring buildings, and of the money and power that make up the world of New York real estate and its multimillionaires. The book takes us from the Astors and […]
Dead Center
DEAD CENTER: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE WORLD’S LARGEST MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE, by Shiya Ribowsky and Tom Shachtman. A city with eight million people has eight million ways to die For fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in […]
I Seek My Brethren
“I SEEK MY BRETHREN”: RALPH GOLDMAN AND “THE JOINT” The biography of a remarkable man driven by a simple mission—to help those in need, wherever they are found—and the story of an organization, which has, since 1914, sponsored rescue, relief and reconstruction programs throughout the world. Founded over 85 years ago as a response to […]