Justin KaplanRezensionen

"Although this biography of Mark Twain begins when Twain is 31 ... the book is a full account of Twain, his life and his work related both to his early years and to the 'Gilded Age' of his mature life."

Just finished last night. Lots of interesting details about Clemens and an interesting glimpse into that period of history in the U.S.

A birthday present from Leslie--can't wait to dive into it tonight!

Good literary biography of Mark Twain.

Really more of a social history than a financial history, especially since the source of the Astor family wealth -- its massive real estate holdings alluded to in the title -- is only glancingly looked at, in favour of assorted family eccentricities and scandals. The family history stuff is fairly old hat -- readers of Lucius Beebe would be familiar with it. A missed opportunity, in some respects, though it's still an interesting read.

A well-written account of an interesting time in history. I thought it went a little too deep on some members of the family. I would have like a broader perspective on more Astors as well as a little more about where that fortune is now.

This is a fascinating biography of the two characters invented by their author: Samuel Clemens & Mark Twain---and the Jekyll and Hyde relationship between the two. Clemens/Twain was a great humorist and at his best in some of his writings or onstage, something Hal Holbrook seems to capture well. But he was a bitter and angry man, too. If you want to read behind the personae created by Twain, this is a good and deep exploration.

The family patriarch, John Jacob Astor, left the German village of Waldorf circa 1780 and started a fur-trading business in New York.
He was the barely literate son of the village butcher.
By the time of his death in 1848, he had become established in real estate and built the Astor Hotel on Broadway.
He was the country's first millionaire, with a legacy of 20 to 30 million, mainly in Manhattan real estate.

"The love of accumulation grew with his years until it ruled him like a tyrant"
---------------------------------

Kaplan's work concentrates on two cousins, William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV.
The great-grandsons inherited a family feud and were intensely antagonistic to one another.
Each produced grand, ostentatious hotels that defined the term luxury hotel.
Both have been deemed responsible for the " invention of conspicuous consumption."
There is also a study of architectural form in the various hotels plus demonstration of the latest inventive skills.

The Astors just do not evoke admiration
The cousins' joint venture, the Waldorf Astoria, was setting for a costume extravaganza during the winter of 1896-1897
It was called "the most notorious society event of the era" because of economic distress and widespread unemployment.

The excesses and indulgences were startling as "new money" attempted to pass into the exclusive circles of "old money"
There were amusing moments, such as Mrs Astor's (Caroline) last formal reception.
Jewel laden, she was noted to look like a "walking chandelier"......

As for the question Should I read this?........I'll remain neutral.

Blue bloods and grand hotels in a gilded age

by Justin Kaplan

181pg
hardcover

★ ★ ★

The family patriarch, John Jacob Astor, left the German village of Waldorf circa 1780 and started a fur-trading business in New York.
He was the barely literate son of the village butcher.
By the time of his death in 1848, he had become established in real estate and built the Astor Hotel on Broadway.
He was the country's first millionaire, with a legacy of 20 to 30 million, mainly in Manhattan real estate.

"The love of accumulation grew with his years until it ruled him like a tyrant"
---------------------------------

Kaplan's work concentrates on two cousins, William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV.
The great-grandsons inherited a family feud and were intensely antagonistic to one another.
Each produced grand, ostentatious hotels that defined the term luxury hotel.
Both have been deemed responsible for the " invention of conspicuous consumption."
There is also a study of architectural form in the various hotels plus demonstration of the latest inventive skills.

The Astors just do not evoke admiration
The cousins' joint venture, the Waldorf Astoria, was setting for a costume extravaganza during the winter of 1896-1897
It was called "the most notorious society event of the era" because of economic distress and widespread unemployment.

The excesses and indulgences were startling as "new money" attempted to pass into the exclusive circles of "old money"
There were amusing moments, such as Mrs Astor's (Caroline) last formal reception.
Jewel laden, she was noted to look like a "walking chandelier"......

I’m a historical voyeur. I enjoy looking back and seeing the way that people used to live in all walks of life. And of course a peak into the uber-rich’s lifestyle is always interesting. That is what drew my attention to this book.

If you’re interested in historical New York hotels, why they were built, why they were destroyed, and a very little detail about the goings-ons in them back in the day, this book might almost be for you. If you are interested in ritzy New York generally from about 100-125 years ago, this book is not for you. I guess I just didn’t take the author’s title literally enough. I guess at one point the Astor family owned a not inconsequential chunk of Manhattan. And that is all that this book is about–oh, with a little sibling rivalry built in so that we leave New York for a few pages to visit England. Otherwise, it’s about the Astor family’s acquisition of property and pissing match as to who could build the biggest, most ostentatious hotel.

My historical life-and-times voyeurism was not fed. The end.

I have to admit I bogged down sometime after the Civil War. But then I keep bogging down in Leaves of Grass as well. Hope your mileage varies. Whitman was an interesting guy.

An excellent warts and all biography of a legend. I am most struck by what an utter shame it is that his business dealings and failures prevented him from writing so much more. He was a man of his times, though. Writing was work. He was from the Gilded Age where men struck it rich on a whim. Little did he realize what riches he had in Livy, Suzy, Clara, Jean, his friends -- Howells in particular. He lived a full rich life but he never appreciated what he had, not even his talent. An enigma.

I've heard the name Astor, of course, but really, other than hoighty-toighty New York, I knew nothing about them. What an interesting--though not very admirable--bunch. This is a biography of the family's founder, one of his sons, two of that son's three sons, and two sons from the next generation. I word it in that convoluted way because there are a whole bunch of Astors who are ignored here (all the women, plus a bunch of men). This book, written in a journalistic style, is about the power players from the Astor family. And it's a quick read.

The subtitle "blue bloods" is tongue in cheek--the family patriarch, John Jacob Astor (b. 1763) was a poor young immigrant from Waldorf, Germany. Obviously a smart fellow, he went from penniless to major property owner of Manhattan. By the time he died well into his 80s, his family had joined the idle rich of New York City. Most of his wealth came from collecting rents from the slums and other properties of NYC. As is common with generational family money, the subsequent generations lived in a world completely out of touch with the real world. One of his great-grandsons had a family lineage researched/created that erased their humble German beginnings and instead had them fighting crusades in Medieval Jerusalem. He also deserted the United States because of its lack of culture and after decades of shameless self-promotion, was made an English peer. Unlike other wealthy families in New York who in some way gave back to the people of the city (for example, Carnegie), the Astors used their money only to make more money for themselves.

The two branches of the family tree did not get along, yet somehow they coordinated to become the creators of the American luxury hotel, and collaborated on the Waldorf-Astoria (the current hotel in NYC with that name, btw, has no connection to the family). Over the years, they built many high-end hotels in New York City, but today all of them are gone except the St. Regis.

Some reviewers here at LT commented that they were looking for more, or expected it to tie together better, and I see what they mean; however, it's a biography, not fiction. Sometimes the facts will only work themselves together along certain paths, and there isn't much an author can do about it. My complaint about the book is all the left out people--including the current generation of Astors.

When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age by Justin Kaplan provided enough interesting details about the Astor family dynamics to keep me reading to the end. These multi-billionaires lived in a time of excess and they were the pinnacle of American high society. This book zeros in on the rivalry that existed between two branches of the family. Starting with brothers of one generation and continuing on with their sons, William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV. It was this generation that turned them from tenement slum-lords to hotel masterminds.

Building a number of hotels from Astor House, The Knickerbocker Hotel , and the St. Regis, none was more famed or luxurious than the Waldorf-Astoria. Opened in 1897, this hotel reigned supreme as the exclusive headquarters for the rich, beautiful and famous of the world. Renowned for introducing the idea of eating in public restaurants and inventing such dishes as Lobster Newburg, Chicken A La King, and the Waldorf Salad.

William Waldorf battled bad press for most of his life and left America, taking up residence in England, and eventually obtaining a coveted Knighthood. John Jacob Astor IV was returning to America from his honeymoon in Europe and went down with the Titanic. The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was demolished in 1929, and the Empire State Building was build on the site.

A fact filled book about a immigrant family that profited from the fur trade and invested in New York real estate to become the richest people in the world. With such an interesting subject, I just wish the author had put a little more spark into his writing. When the Astors Owned New York is a small look at the powerful people that reigned over America during the Gilded Age.

The focus of The Language of Names is far narrower than the rather grandiose title suggests, though a careful reading of the back cover copy (which mentions "contemporary society") would reveal its limitations. There are a lot of interesting questions about names to be explored: that no culture has ever been encountered that doesn't use them (and indeed, there are indications that some species of whales and dolphins use some form of individual identifiers); the development of last names rather than patronymics or ad-hoc identifiers based on occupation or location; the wide variation in the number of names available in different cultures (we all know that most Koreans are named Kim, Park, or Lee, but why?); and other anthropological questions. Unfortunately, this book answers none of those questions.

Instead, it explores a set of situations rather narrowly confined to modern American naming practices -- immigrants Anglicizing their names (though no discussion of how and why this has fallen out of favor in the last century), celebrities changing theirs, and the deep ire with which many men view the apparently shocking practice of women choosing not to change their names upon marriage. Overall, the book read like a somewhat padded magazine article -- an okay way to pass the time, but not worth seeking out.

This book is a cursory, and I stress cursory, overview of the Astor dynsaty from its German founder, John Jacob in the 18th century, to the early 20th century inheritors. The book gives some of the foibles, political and/or social spirations, buying, etc.

I disliked this book. It seemed to me that "X" event happened and here's how much the bill was and the social critique of the event. There wasn't any description of smell or hearing to envoke the scene that the author was trying to describe. I would read this only if nothing else were available.

i wanted to like this. something missing.
no info on current astors. surely i'm not the only one who wanted to know.
a lot of info on ww astor. not much on jj astor 4.½

This was a slog. I "speed-read" several passages. Howard Mumford Jones on the back says, "The richest, most subtle, and best-sustained analysis of Mark Twain anywhere to be found..." He may be right, but that's the trouble - this is a sustained analysis. The relentless psychological analysis bogged down the fascinating narrative of a complex life. Some books are written by scholars for other scholars. Others are written by scholars for general readership. This is one of the former. This book could have been half its length and five times more entertaining, if Kaplan had spent more time on the story of a life, rather than psychological underpinnings. A little "why" goes a long way when you're interested in the "who" and "what."

The Astors were the self appointed American aristocracy. There was nothing money could not buy for them. Their hotels, their New Port, RI "cottages", their Fifth Avenue mansions, were all overly ostentatiously over the top.

The copious consumption left the underlings of America throwing stones at their barbarias upper class values. Unlike Andrew Carneige who generously funded libraries throughout small-town America, The Astors and The Vanderbilts selfishly kept the wealth in the family.

While this book contains interesting tidbits, it falls as flat as the turn of the century values of the Astors.

In the historian (or time travel) parlor game of “if you could choose any era, in which one would you wish to live?” my stock answer is the Gilded Age. With no income-tax, enough early versions of current technology to seem uber-retro and the ever important knowledge of germ theory, the Gilded Age would be my perfect destination (oh, did I mention I would need to be rich?).

For that reason, "When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age" spoke to me. It seemed to have it all – money, architecture, scandal and the Titanic – promising the perfect package. Unfortunately, the package was a little tarnished.

As the title suggests, the book includes a multiple focus. And while I learned a lot about the Astor family (a thank you goes out to the author for including that family tree diagram), and an developed an insight into how and why they and their contemporaries demonstrated a somewhat unexpected penchant for innkeeping, there was so much data to include in such a slim volume (it’s barely 200 pages) that the final product read more like a compilation of essays never really reaching a unifying or satisfying end.

The saving grace, at least for me, is that again, I find this a fascinating time. The author does a good job, even if the end result falls a little flat, in laying out examples of the era, with enough humor and quality writing to keep the reader engaged through the end. For readers with similar interests, this would be a recommended read.½

See, now, this could have been a pretty good book. It had a lot of interesting chapters, even if they tended to skim the surface of what initially promised to be a rather fascinating subject. But it's a BIG subject, and the book is relatively short, so you know...one shouldn't expect too much. It's interesting to read about names and social structures...and names and their mystical power...character names in literature. All that was cool, and I was enjoying it. But then, dear me, they got to the chapter on (whisper it) MAIDEN names.

Holy crap, what is up with Anne Bernays? Apparently, if you give up your maiden name and take your husband's name YOU HAVE TOTALLY GIVEN IT TO THE MAN, you silly oppressed boot-licker, you. Um, is it just me? Or did it escape Darling Anne's notice that a maiden name is actually the name of the woman's FATHER? And that there isn't a whole lot of difference (oppression-wise) between carrying your daddy's name or your sweetie's name? Apparently, for Anne, the very notion of taking Justin's last name was an agonizing blow to her WHOLE IDENTITY(which must be very loosely anchored indeed).

WhatEVER. The rest of the book was not insanely ideological. I guess she needed to blow off steam somewhere. Maybe Justin is a big pain in the neck and never washes the dishes and drops his dirty underwear on the floor.

interesting

This non-fiction work was quite a bit less than I expected of it. The information it held was very interested, well researched, and enjoyable. But, the book seemed like the author was pulling and stretching for ways to make it all tie together. Everyone who reads it can see how it all does tie together, but there was a lack of flow and some confusion in the transitions from one idea to the next.

I will not read this book again and I'm sorry to say I won't recommend it either.

I really enjoyed this. I was fascinated by the amount of wealth this family had and their hold the New York real estate market (much of it in tenement slums!) I was also amazed at what they did with their wealth-overblown parties, rebuilding historic English castles to their liking, and all of the infighting between them!

Interesting but not overwhelming; perhaps the examples rolled on beyond what was necessary and kept going beyond what was tolerable; the sub-title conveys that "what we call ourselves" matters and that point is made; however then it's made again and again with a lot of subtle political agenda along the way. Summary: presents some novel message, but definitely not a must-read.

I really didn't know much about this historic feud of two Astor family titans who in essence established the very notion of luxury hotels. A fun read.