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The Big Rich : The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Burrough, Bryan is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Capitalism at its most colorful oozes across the pages of this engrossing study of independent oil men. Vanity Fair special correspondent Burrough (coauthor, Barbarians at the Gate ) profiles the Big Four oil dynasties of H.L. Hunt, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, along with their cronies, rivals, families and, in Hunt's case, bigamous second and third families. The saga begins heroically in the early 20th-century oil boom, with wildcatters roaming the Texas countryside drilling one dry hole after another, scrounging money and fending off creditors until gushers of black gold redeem them. Their second acts as garish nouveaux riches with strident right-wing politics are entertaining, if less dramatic. Decline sets in as rising production costs and cheaper Middle Eastern oil erode profits, and a feckless, feuding second generation squanders family fortunes on debauchery and reckless investment—H.L.'s sons' efforts in 1970 to corner the silver market bankrupted them and almost took down Wall Street. This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile

Who reads The Big Rich : The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes?

Author

Burrough, Bryan

Publisher

Penguin Books Ltd

Published

2010

Language

EN

ISBN

9780143116820

Category

history

Subjects

Engineering, Memoir, Economics

Rating

3.98 / 5 (1,235 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14