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Title: Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller
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Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $15.00
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller by W. W. Norton Taking on the Trust is fascinating | Steve Weinberg, one of America's most accomplished Journalism professors, has taken a "busman's holiday," in writing this fascinating and beautifully researched book. Weinberg, an inspiration to several generations of University of Missouri students, has written about one of his own heroes who no doubt helped influence his rather prestigious academic pathway. He has most satisfyingly delved into the epic battle of a single, brilliant young woman who successfully defined the power of the free press in 1904, pioneering investigative journalist Ida Tarbell who "muckraked" up the expensive and deep sediment underneath Standard Oil, standing alone against the awesome wealth and power of John D. Rockefeller.
Prof. Weinberg is as complete and intimate with his subject as any historian. Infused into this book is his profound sense of appreciation of the fierce, burning integrity and inspirational relentlessness of Ida Tarbell. He makes an excellent case for her monumental, fearless work "The History of the Standard Oil Company," as being the greatest work of investigative journalism ever written. The rich and world-saving traditions of the press in the twentieth century in many ways find their roots in Tarbell and her publisher Samuel McClure, who proved that the battle armor of a democratic society is its free press; without it, the people live in the dark.
This book will give the reader a completely refreshed pride in discovering that history can be riveting. In addition, it holds tremendous insight into the late-nineteenth century roots of the women's movement for equal rights, as well as the revolution for the rights of America's workers at the hands of monopolistic, big business. Ida Tarbell will become one of your new heroes. | | Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller by W. W. Norton Product Description | How a female investigative journalist brought down the world's greatest tycoon and broke up the Standard Oil monopoly.
Long before the rise of mega-corporations like Wal-Mart and Microsoft, Standard Oil controlled the oil industry with a monopolistic force unprecedented in American business history. Undaunted by the ruthless power of its owner, John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), a fearless and ambitious reporter named Ida Minerva Tarbell (1857-1944) confronted the company known simply as "The Trust." Through her peerless fact gathering and devastating prose, Tarbell, a muckraking reporter at McClure's magazine, pioneered the new practice of investigative journalism. Her shocking discoveries about Standard Oil and Rockefeller led, inexorably, to a dramatic confrontation during the opening decade of the twentieth century that culminated in the landmark 1911 Supreme Court antitrust decision breaking up the monopolies and forever altering the landscape of modern American industry. Based on extensive research in the Tarbell and Rockefeller archives, Taking on the Trust is a vivid and dramatic history of the Progressive Era with powerful resonance for the first decades of the twenty-first century. 16 pages of illustrations. |
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