Description: This newest book by Pulitzer Prize winner Kaplan is a sparkling combination of biography, social history, architectural appreciation, and pure pleasure, as he looks at the Astor familys dynasty and its contributions to the city of New York.
Review Quotes: A gem of a book . . . No one since [Henry] James has written with such ease and grace about the era of excess as Kaplan. (Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters)
Mr. Kaplan, a dazzling stylist, is perfectly suited to his subject: what Henry James lovingly called æhotel civilizationæ . . . [A] splendid book about a bygone age that has not quite gone away. (The New York Sun)