Kirkus Review

Here's an unimposing, unassuming book by a peripatetic historian (last stop, Lewis and Clark, p. 183) that's probably the best single volume on the infamous, irresistible John D. around. Hawke first tells the stage-worthy story of Rockefeller's bizarre upbringing as the eldest son of a genial bigamist whose long ab sences and lessons in sharp-trading made the boy steady, watchful, and absolutely confident. At 14, young John D. was on his own in Cleveland with a small bank account; at 16, after a series of business courses, he set out to look for a job--drawing up a list of ""suitable"" firms and then making the rounds, again and again, until one of his target-firms gave him a chance. Thereafter, Hawke notes, he always celebrated the day by flying the flag, ""as if it were a national holiday."" Rockefeller, in Hawke's telling, is no glum moneygrubber; and neither is he portrayed, later, as a pious old reprobate. Much of Hawke's purpose in tracing the rise of John D. to ""richest, most hated man in the world"" is to show just what Allan Nevins sidesteps in his monumental apologia--how Rockefeller, grounded in ""the 'higher law' of business,"" could believe he was a revolutionary force for good. (Corporate proliferation, restraint of trade, transport-rebates illegal? ""Through cooperation all would prosper, and. . . so too would the nation prosper."") Among the highpoints--some the result of Hawke's rethinking, some credited to historians, many devolving from Hawke's imaginative use of documents--are a close examination of John D.'s claim that ""ruinous, cutthroat competition"" in the early days of oil refining justified Rockefeller-led ""cooperation""; his ""destructive"" attempt to block the first long-distance pipeline (""he was no innovator""); and what lay under that ""placid exterior."" It's a biographical portrait, not a full biography, featuring the man of business and taking only incidental note of the philanthropist or the founder of a dynasty. But Hawke has a quiet way of finding the right words (""the subtlest of men"" in the office, ""outside the simplest"") and the evidence to support his judgments. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.