John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire. By Axel Madsen. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. 304 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $30.00. ISBN 0-471-38503-4. It would be difficult to write a bad biography of John Jacob Astor. His life contained all the aspects of a compelling story: German youth comes to revolutionary America in search of opportunity, makes a false start as a music peddler, falls by chance into the fur business, carves a niche by ambition and perseverance, bests his competitors by boldness and breadth of vision, takes his trade global by pioneering the tra...
