Most Popular Books by Daniel Schulman

Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography -- until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse." Fred''s legacy would become a blessing and a curse to his four sons-Frederick, Charles, and fraternal twins David and Bill-who in the ensuing decades fought bitterly over their birthright, the oil and cattle-ranching empire their father left behind in 1967. Against a backdrop of scorched-earth legal skirmishes, Charles and David built Koch Industries into one of the largest private corporations in the world-bigger than Boeing and Disney-and they rose to become two of the wealthiest men on the planet. Influenced by the sentiments of their father, who was present at the birth of the John Birch Society, Charles and David have spent decades trying to remake the American political landscape and mainline their libertarian views into the national bloodstream. They now control a machine that is a center of gravity within the Republican Party. To their supporters, they are liberating America from the scourge of Big Government. To their detractors, they are political "contract killers," as David Axelrod, President Barack Obama''s chief strategist, put it during the 2012 campaign. Bill, meanwhile, built a multi-billion dollar energy empire all his own, and earned notoriety as an America''s Cup-winning yachtsman, a flamboyant playboy, and as a litigious collector of fine wine and Western memorabilia. Frederick lived an intensely private life as an arts patron, refurbishing a series of historic homes and estates. Sons of Witchita traces the complicated lives and legacies of these four tycoons, as well as their business, social, and political ambitions. No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of our era, but so little is publicly known about this family, their origins, how they make their money, and how they live their lives. Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, relatives, business associates, and many others, Sons of Witchita is the first major biography about this wealthy and powerful family-warts and all.

The New York Times Book Review Editors'' Choice • The incredible saga of the German-Jewish immigrants—with now familiar names like Goldman and Sachs, Kuhn and Loeb, Warburg and Schiff, Lehman and Seligman—who profoundly influenced the rise of modern finance (and so much more), from the New York Times best-selling author of Sons of Wichita Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabama. Not far behind were Solomon Loeb and Marcus Goldman, among the “Forty-Eighters” fleeing a Germany that had relegated Jews to an underclass. These industrious immigrants would soon go from peddling trinkets and buying up shopkeepers’ IOUs to forming what would become some of the largest investment banks in the world—Goldman Sachs, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers, J. & W. Seligman & Co. They would clash and collaborate with J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, and other famed tycoons of the era. And their firms would help to transform the United States from a debtor nation into a financial superpower, capitalizing American industry and underwriting some of the twentieth century’s quintessential companies, like General Motors, Macy’s, and Sears. Along the way, they would shape the destiny not just of American finance but of the millions of Eastern European Jews who spilled off steamships in New York Harbor in the early 1900s, including Daniel Schulman’s paternal grandparents. In The Money Kings, Schulman unspools a sweeping narrative that traces the interconnected origin stories of these financial dynasties. He chronicles their paths to Wall Street dominance, as they navigated the deeply antisemitic upper class of the Gilded Age, and the complexities of the Civil War, World War I, and the Zionist movement that tested both their burgeoning empires and their identities as Americans, Germans, and Jews.

A incrível saga das famílias dos imigrantes — Goldman e Sachs, Kuhn e Loeb, Lehman e Seligman, Warburg e Schiff — que empreenderam do zero e construíram impérios financeiros globais. Joseph Seligman aportou nos Estados Unidos, em 1837, com apenas uma nota de cem dólares costurada no forro da calça. Depois vieram os irmãos Lehman, que abriram uma loja de artigos gerais em Montgomery, Alabama. Em seguida, chegaram Solomon Loeb e Marcus Goldman, fugindo de uma Alemanha que relegava os judeus a uma subclasse. Esses imigrantes sonhavam com a prosperidade econômica, mas viajaram para a América espremidos em navios de terceira classe. Começaram a galgar seu espaço na sociedade como mascates, vendendo bugigangas e atravessando o país em carroças de madeira. Acabariam por construir alguns dos maiores bancos de investimentos de mundo, moldando o destino não só da economia americana, mas também das finanças mundiais. Narrativa envolvente, Os reis do dinheiro conta, a um só tempo, a história de famílias que costuraram impérios; de imigrantes que ajudaram a criar a economia moderna enquanto navegavam em suas identidades como judeus, banqueiros e americanos; e das dinastias que formaram Wall Street e financiaram empresas icônicas do capitalismo.

Chicago’s fine arts have long languished in the shadow of the city’s architectural riches, but their time has finally come, most prominently as the focus of the final major exhibition at Chicago’s Terra Museum of American Art. The attendant catalog of the Terra Museum’s fall 2004 exhibition, "Chicago Modern, 1893-1945: Pursuit of the New", is the first-ever survey by a major art museum of early American modernist works created by Chicago artists. At the opening of the twentieth century, Chicago was regarded as the quintessential modern city that would provide fertile soil for a new national art. The debut of impressionism at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 bore early witness to this expectation as it marked the arrival of modern art in Chicago. In the midst of great local controversy, and echoing debates raging at the time in New York and Paris, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago incorporated modernism into its curriculum, a move that led Chicago-trained artists to experiment in and reinterpret the prominent art movements of their time. Here, for the first time, this work is showcased. This volume focuses on the rich body of artistic work produced during the city’s artistic “golden age,” the period from the 1893 Exposition through the end of World War II. Noted art scholars contribute to the volume with essays that explore how Chicago painters created a unique niche in these transformative international art movements—from the impressionism of the 1800s to the social realism and surrealism of the 1930s and 1940s—and forged a regional consciousness through experimental means. This detailed and lavishly illustrated catalog examines the larger issues and concerns that shaped art in Chicago during this period, offering a new and valuable addition to regional American art scholarship and a fitting farewell for one of Chicago’s most beloved art museums. Contributors: Wendy Greenhouse Elizabeth Kennedy Daniel Schulman Susan Weininger

Rocky loses customers from his ice cream shop when Chip and Sprinkle''s opens across the street with lower prices, and friendlier owners.