Matthew Josephson

"The best, the liveliest and most illuminating" account of Rockefeller, Morgan, and the other men who seized American economic power after the Civil War ( The New Republic ). John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick ... their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums...

Toilers of the Sea (1866) is a novel by Victor Hugo. Written while Hugo was living in exile on the island of Guernsey, Toilers of the Sea is a story of adventure that expresses the everyday struggles of a fool in love while capturing the changes wrought by political and economic revolution in Europe. "Gilliatt lived in the parish of St. Sampson. He was not liked by his neighbours; and there were reasons for that fact." Viewed as an outsider by the...

In 1862 Paris, Emile Zola is barely scratching out a living writing muckraking articles about the poverty of the French people and the corruption of their leaders. Until "Nana, " about the life of a prostitute, becomes a smash hit and turns Zola into a celebrity, champion of the people. As he churns out a string of similar books that make him quite rich, his old friend Paul Cezanne tells him "An artist should remain poor." His determined intervention...