It’s hard to escape the name Astor when you are in New York: from Astor Place downtown to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and even the neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, the family’s legacy is everywhere.
In “Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune,” CNN journalist Anderson Cooper and his co-writer Katherine Howe trace the famous family’s legacy from its beginning, when John Jacob Astor immigrated from Germany and established himself in the beaver fur trade, a bloody and highly competitive business. He invested his fortune in buying up land in the rapidly developing island of Manhattan and became one of the richest men in the U.S.
