The rich really are different, as this lightly presented but utterly serious presentation proves beyond argument.
British cartoonist Cunningham serves up the tales of four moguls with outsize influence on the lives of the rest of us.
The new gilded age is America-centric, though far from confined to the U.S., since “there are few geographic barriers to enormous wealth.” Around the world, the ultrawealthy have asserted policies to undo governmental controls on the economy and dismantle the welfare state, however benign, whether breaking the backs of unions or obliterating pension funds. Cunningham focuses on Rupert Murdoch, David and Charles Koch, and Jeff Bezos. Murdoch began by assuming control of a lucrative media network in his native Australia, then worked his way into mostly crafty acquisitions of other networks in the U.K. and U.S. by recruiting leading politicians to evade monopoly statutes. Of course, he made his share of errors, including his purchase of MySpace, which he bought for $580 million in 2005 but dumped six years later for $35 million. The Koch brothers, by Cunningham’s account, were even more politically aggressive, and their meddling has “only helped weaken democratic safeguards that had previously kept at bay would-be demagogues like Donald Trump.” They inherited a fortune, too. Only Bezos came from a comparatively modest background, though, to judge by this narrative, he has been no less politically ruthless. Cunningham’s drawing style is faux naif, representational in the manner of Derf Backderf, if a little less controlled, but his writing style is terse and declarative: “Murdoch’s drift to the political right began in 1975. That year, Australia suffered a constitutional crisis.” His own tendency is clearly to the left, but regardless of stance, it seems inarguable that we are all at least complicit in the power of the mega-rich. “None of us have to buy from Amazon,” he writes. “It isn’t against the law not to contribute to Jeff Bezos’s fortune.”
The rich really are different, as this lightly presented but utterly serious presentation proves beyond argument.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77046-448-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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