Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Front cover
AuthorRon Chernow
LanguageEnglish
SubjectJohn D. Rockefeller
PublisherRandom House
Publication date
1998
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint, audiobook, e-book
Pages774 pages
ISBN0679438084

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. is a 1998 non-fiction book by American author Ron Chernow. The book covers the life of the American business magnate John D. Rockefeller from his early days as the son of an itinerant snake-oil salesman, into his founding of Standard Oil and its massive success and eventual dissolution, and through the large-scale philanthropy that consumed much of his later life. At the time of its writing, the book was unique in its attempt at a balanced view of Rockefeller's career, bucking the trend of his biographers portraying him and his business practices as either good or evil. The book's release came while the federal government was considering pursuing an antitrust lawsuit against the Microsoft Corporation, and parallels were drawn by critics between that ongoing investigation and the one into Standard Oil's business practices.

The book was generally well-received by critics, who mostly praised Chernow's meticulous research and neutral approach to describing the life of a polarizing figure, though some reviewers considered the account less neutral than others. It was called "a triumph of the art of biography" by The New York Times Book Review and became a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.