The Guggenheims (Hardcover)

By a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and his wife, a portrait of a great American dynasty and its legacy in business, technology, the arts, and philanthropy Meyer Guggenheim, a Swiss immigrant, founded a great American business dynasty. At their peak in the early 20th century, the Guggenheims were reckoned as among the richest in America and the richest Jewish family in the world after the Rothschilds. They belong to "crowd", that tight social circle of New York Jewish plutocrats, but unlike the others- primarily merchants and financiers- they made their money by extracting and refining copper, silver, lead, tin, and gold. In the third generation, Harry Guggenheim, Daniel's son, took over leadership and made the family a force in aviation, publishing, and horse racing. He desperately sought a successor but tragically failed and was forced to watch as the great Guggenheim enterprise crumbled. But meanwhile, "Guggenheim" came to mean art more than industry. In the mid 20th century, led by Harry's son Solomon and his niece Peggy, the Guggenheims became the agents of modernism in the visual arts. Peggy, while in America during the war years, midwives the school of abstract expression, which brought leadership in art to New York. Solomon's museum has been innovative in spreading the riches of western art around the world.