For more than ten years, John Steele Gordon has written the widely read "The Business of America" column in "American Heritage" magazine. Marked by a combination of erudition, wit, and eloquence, Gordon's stories have celebrated the high points, and occasional low points, in the history of business in this country, from colonial days to the present. Now, the best of his mini-histories have been gathered in one volume. As much as each stands on its own, together they gain in significance as they go beyond mere business to present an intriguing lens on the broad sweep of American history. Gordon deftly connects the past with the present as he compares Frederick Philipse's successful cornering of the wampum market in 1666 with the Hunt brothers' failed attempt to corner the silver market in 1979. He looks anew at famous industrialists like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford, and uncovers little-remembered heroes such as Oliver Evans, the founding father of the American industrial revolution, and Samuel Slater, who launched the textile industry in this country. He revels alike in the stories of philanthropist Peter Cooper, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and the father of television syndication, Desi Arnaz. Gordon reveals how broad trends have developed (government debt and inflation, for example) and how specific words (boondoggle, pork barrel) have entered our language. He even tells the story of America's greatest cheese, Liederkranz, now lost forever. In addition to being a superb historian, John Steele Gordon is a great storyteller. Surveying almost 400 years of enterprise on this continent, "The Business of America" makes invaluable connections between eras and allows us a new appreciation of the richness of the American story.

約翰•S•戈登,《偉大的博弈》作者,美國作傢和經濟曆史學傢,1944年生於紐約,其祖父和外祖父均在紐約股票交易所擁有席位。他1966年畢業於範德比爾特大學,獲曆史學學士學位。在過去的二十年,他作為全職作傢,著有《資本的冒險》、《財富的帝國》。1999年,他齣版瞭《偉大的博弈---華爾街金融帝國的崛起》,該書獲得各界廣泛關注,美國全國廣播電視公司(CNBC)還專門為此書製作瞭長達兩個小時的專題報道。