Few names are as synonymous with wealth and glamour as “Vanderbilt.”

When Cornelius Vanderbilt, the teenaged son of a ferryman who worked in New York Harbor, decided to go into business on his own, few would have believed that within six decades he would come to epitomize American business, magnate of a shipping and railroad empire that made him the richest man in the country.

In the wake of his death in 1877, Cornelius’s heirs bitterly fought over his estate, sowing familial discord that would last for decades. For the generations of Vanderbilts who followed, fortunes were lost and made and lost again. In this tide of success and failure, a particularly American excess displayed itself. By 2019, when the last Vanderbilt left the Breakers— the estate in Newport, Rhode Island, his son and namesake Cornelius Vanderbilt II built—the family would most likely have been unrecognizable to the Commodore.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson, Anderson Cooper, tells the story of his legendary family and their remarkable influence. Working with historian and novelist Katherine Howe, Cooper breathes life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, doubled the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with American capitalism and high society. Moving from Staten Island to the drawing rooms of Fifth Avenue, the ornate cottages of Newport to Europe, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the family’s triumphs and tragedies and reflect on the social mores they observed, flouted, and shaped.

Drawing on never-before-seen documents and told from a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.

About the Author:

Anderson Cooper joined CNN in 2001 and has hosted his own program, Anderson Cooper 360°, since March 2003. From September 2011 to May 2013, he also served as host of the daytime talk show, Anderson Live. Prior to CNN, he worked for ABC News and Channel One News. Cooper has won several awards, including a National Headliners Award, a Peabody Award, and five Emmy Awards. He graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a B.A. in political science and studied Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi.

About the Moderator:

Katherine Howe is a novelist and historian of America. She holds a BA in art history and philosophy from Columbia and an MA in American and New England Studies from Boston University, where she also did doctoral work. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The House of Velvet and Glass, as well as the young adult novels Conversion and The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen. She served as editor of The Penguin Book of Witches. She has appeared on NPR, National Geographic, Smithsonian TV, the Travel Channel, and Good Morning America. She lives with her family in New England and New York City.

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