The release date for the English version of 'Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty' by
Anderson Cooper is Sep 2021. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
In order to chronicle the rise and collapse of a renowned American dynasty—his mother's family, the Vanderbilts—New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper links up with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe.
In the early 1800s, when eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt started working on his father's small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor, nobody could have predicted that one day he would become the richest man in America by building two empires, one in railroads and the other in shipping, through ruthlessness, cunning, and an insatiable desire for wealth. After his death in 1877, his heirs struggled over his astounding inheritance, causing family strife that would never entirely mend. Even if "the Commodore's" son Billy increased the amount of money left behind, succeeding generations strove to discover ever-more-outlandish methods to squander it. The billionaire who began it all would have never recognized the Vanderbilt family by 2018, when the last of them was thrown out of The Breakers, the seventy-room vacation mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, that had been constructed by Cornelius's grandson and namesake.
Anderson Cooper, the Commodore's great-great-great-grandson, has teamed up with historian Katherine Howe to delve into the history of his illustrious family and their immense impact. The forebears who established the family's empire, benefited from the Commodore's fortune, organized extravagant galas, and came to represent unbridled American capitalism and high society are brought to life by Cooper and Howe. Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other, moving from the spartan wharves of old Manhattan to the opulent drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the elaborate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York.
Written from a unique insider's perspective, this is a hilarious history of America that is just as amazing as the family it so eloquently portrays.