Ron Chernow

Author profile

born

January 01, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York City, The United States

gender

male

genre

Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Investing

About this author

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Ron Chernow was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating with honors from Yale College and Cambridge University with degrees in English Literature, he began a prolific career as a freelance journalist. Between 1973 and 1982, Chernow published over sixty articles in national publications, including numerous cover stories. In the mid-80s Chernow went to work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a prestigious New York think tank, where he served as director of financial policy studies and received what he described as “a crash course in economics and financial history.”

Chernow’s journalistic talents combined with his experience studying financial policy culminated in the writing of his extraordinary first book, The House of Morgan: An...more Ron Chernow was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating with honors from Yale College and Cambridge University with degrees in English Literature, he began a prolific career as a freelance journalist. Between 1973 and 1982, Chernow published over sixty articles in national publications, including numerous cover stories. In the mid-80s Chernow went to work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a prestigious New York think tank, where he served as director of financial policy studies and received what he described as “a crash course in economics and financial history.”

Chernow’s journalistic talents combined with his experience studying financial policy culminated in the writing of his extraordinary first book, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (1990). Winner of the 1990 National Book Award for Nonfiction, The House of Morgan traces the amazing history of four generations of the J.P. Morgan empire. The New York Times Book Review wrote, “As a portrait of finance, politics and the world of avarice and ambition on Wall Street, the book has the movement and tension of an epic novel. It is, quite simply, a tour de force.” Chernow continued his exploration of famous financial dynasties with his second book, The Warburgs (1994), the story of a remarkable Jewish family. The book traces Hamburg’s most influential banking family of the 18th century from their successful beginnings to when Hitler’s Third Reich forced them to give up their business, and ultimately to their regained prosperity in America on Wall Street.

Described by Time as “one of the great American biographies,” Chernow’s Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1998) brilliantly reveals the complexities of America’s first billionaire. Rockefeller was known as a Robber Baron, whose Standard Oil Company monopolized an entire industry before it was broken up by the famous Supreme Court anti-trust decision in 1911. At the same time, Rockefeller was one of the century’s greatest philanthropists donating enormous sums to universities and medical institutions. Chernow is the Secretary of PEN American Center, the country’s most prominent writers’ organization, and is currently at work on a biography of Alexander Hamilton. He lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

In addition to writing biographies, Chernow is a book reviewer, essayist, and radio commentator. His book reviews and op-ed articles appear frequently in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He comments regularly on business and finance for National Public Radio and for many shows on CNBC, CNN, and the Fox News Channel. In addition, he served as the principal expert on the A&E biography of J.P. Morgan and will be featured as the key Rockefeller expert on an upcoming CNBC documentary.
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Books by Ron Chernow

Average rating: 4.15 · 8,508 ratings · 865 reviews · 9 distinct works

	Alexander Hamilton 4.15 avg rating — 4,496 ratings — published 2004 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Washington: A Life 4.22 avg rating — 2,135 ratings — published 2010 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. 4.15 avg rating — 1,215 ratings — published 1997 — 10 editions	My rating:
	The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance 3.95 avg rating — 539 ratings — published 1990 — 12 editions	My rating:
	The Warburgs: The Twentieth Century Odyssey Of A Remarkable Jewish Family by Ron Chernow, Marty Asher (Editor) 3.93 avg rating — 90 ratings — published 1993 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor 3.80 avg rating — 25 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2012	My rating:
	Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011	My rating:
	George Washington: Selected Writings: Selected Writings by George Washington, Ron Chernow 3.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2011	My rating:

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Quotes by Ron Chernow

“Perseverance in almost any plan is better than fickleness and fluctuation. (Alexander Hamilton, July 1792)”
― Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton

5 people liked it

“[Philip's death was] beyond comparison the most afflicting of my life.... He was truly a fine youth. But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven and he is now out of the reach of the seductions and calamities of a world full of folly, full of vice, full of danger, of least value in proportion as it is best known. I firmly trust also that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity. (Alexander Hamilton letter to Benjamin Rush about the death of his 19-year old son from mortal wounds inflicted from a duel.)”
― Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton

tags: grief

3 people liked it

“And shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven." Washington himself could be a hard driving businessman, yet he found the rapacity of many vendors unconscionable. As he told George Mason, he thought it the intent of the speculators, various tribes of money makers and stock jobbers of all denominations, to continue the war for their own private emolument, without considering that their avarice and thirst for gain must plunge everything in one common ruin.”
― Ron Chernow

tags: greed , history , us , washington

2 people liked it

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