David Graham Phillips wrote this savage portrait of American ambition in 1903, and it still cuts like a blade. The novel follows an ambitious young man climbing the treacherous ladder of New York business, confessing along the way exactly how he accumulated his millions: the bribes, the betrayals, the deals done in shadow. Phillips, the muckraking journalist who exposed Senator Mark Hanna, turns his investigative fury toward fiction, pulling apart the glittering facade of turn-of-the-century capitalism to reveal the rot beneath. Our narrator is unrepentant, even proud, as he details his ascent through corrupt politicians, ruined rivals, and exploited workers. This is not a moral tale about sin and redemption. It is a cold-eyed chronicle of how the wealthy actually built their fortunes, told with the casual brutality of a man who knows the game and has no intention of pretending otherwise. For readers who crave Gilded Age satire that anticipates every cynical trope of modern business culture.
