Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
If I had to sum up my review of Astor in one word it would be “Meh”.
For a family as interesting as this one this book is remarkably dull. I have been enjoying gilded age books recently and though I know the name Astor I knew very little about the family itself. I was very interested in learning more.
This book started interesting enough with the story of how the Astor fortune first came to be. Then it rambled. Towards the end the information about Brooke Astor was also quite interesting.
Too much time was devoted to tangential things. Why did we need to know descriptions of different film depictions of the Titanic? I would have much rather learned about the Astors aboard and what happened to them after the boat sank. There were entire chapters devoted to people named Astor but who were not members of “The Astor Family”. Why did we need to learn about John Jacob Astor the cigar maker or Mary Astor the actress? The chapter on the gay bar in the Astor hotel was just bizarre.
There were parts where Cooper was a bit heavy-handed in his criticism of the Astors. For example, there was a house break in and Cooper tried to paint the Astors as callous for wanting the person prosecuted. Wouldn’t we all be upset at someone breaking into our homes? I think the criticism falls a bit flat coming from someone who is a descendant on an equally obnoxiously, wealthy family.
I also take issue with the name of this book. There really was no “fall of the fortune”. The last Mrs. Astor chose to give most of her money to charity – it wasn’t a fortune lost in the way other similar families squandered their wealth.
Overall, I liked listening to Anderson Cooper. If I had been reading this, I probably would not have made it to the end.
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