William Randolph Hearst presided over one of the great financial and communications empires in American history. Truly one of the giants of the publishing industry, he did not confine his interests and influence to journalism alone. He was fascinated with politics and aspired to political office, dreaming of nothing less than occupying the White House. Hearst was a curious personality--a combination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as one biographer put it--and his legacy for American journalism and history is, at best, mixed.

The Hearst fortune may not have been as large as those of the Rockefellers, the Mellons, or the Fords, but it was large enough, with assets totaling at one time between $200,000,000 and $400,000,000. The name Hearst, of course, is identified with newspapers, and Hearst during one period owned more than a score of them. But the empire involved much more: there were magazines; radio stations; mines...