Best carnegie biography

Andrew Carnegie
by David Nasaw
878 pages
Penguin Books
Published: October 2006

“Andrew Carnegie” by Davis Nasaw was published in 2006 and was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Nasaw is the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History at City University of New York. Among his most widely-read books are biographies of Joseph P.Kennedy (which I read and reviewed last year) and William Randolph Hearst.

The ideal biography requires several crucial ingredients.

Among them are an intriguing biographical subject, a skilled writer, a robust supply of primary source material and an author capable of diligent and determined research. This scholarly and often gripping biography of Andrew Carnegie provides each of these items in abundance.

Using sources not available to earlier biographers, Nasaw skillfully stitches together a seamless and comprehensive narrative which explores his subject’s entire life