bestselling paperback

THE RICH AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY

How the Wealthiest People of All Time - from Genghis Khan to Bill Gates - Made Their Fortunes

Cynthia Crossen

Winner of the WHSmith Business Book of the Year 2001

"At last a business book jam-packed with sex and violence and much, much more: avarice on a heroic scale, money beyond your wildest fantasies, megalomania, paranoia, psychosis and virtually every other interesting human vice you care to think of and several you'd probably rather not. Meticulously researched and enchantingly recounted, The Rich is very much more than a good collection of mini-biographies. Cynthia Crossen has many thoughtful and provoking observations on the nature and essence of wealth."
Enterprise

MEET THE WEALTHY!

• Mansa Musa, the African king who executed those who sneezed in his presence and owned a nugget of gold so big he could tether his horse to it.
• Jakob Fugger, who declared that 'the king reigns but the bank rules' and held the contract for managing the pope's money and collecting cash for the remission of sins.
• Richard Arkwright, the ultimate rags-to-riches story, who claimed that if he lived long enough his own capital could repay Britain's debt.
• Hetty Green, who moved the financial markets of the nineteenth century, yet lived in cheap boarding houses in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Hoboken, New Jersey...
• and many others...

What does Bill Gates have in common with Genghis Khan? Or with Pope Alexander VI, the English inventor Richard Arkwright, or Hetty Green who was the 'witch of Wall Street' during the nineteenth century?

All were among the richest people in history. Through their stories Cynthia Crossen traces the major financial and technological developments that shaped the world we live in today.

"Offers a splendid demonstration of why capitalism saw off its various ideological competitors."
The Sunday Times Book of the Week

Cynthia Crossen is a senior editor of the Wall Street Journal, where she has been a reporter and editor since 1983. Her beats have included the financial markets, publishing, education and social trends. Her previous book was the well-received Tainted Truth: the Manipulation of Fact in America, which was voted one of Business Week's top books. She lives in New York.