[551199]

Do you mean the book made Rockefeller look evil or generally viewed as such? I personally didn't feel the book made him look evil, but that might be just me.

I don't think it's surprising him being hated as the most powerful man at the time. His thrive did make lot of progress for humanity.

[WalterBright]

I meant that Chernow would regularly list facts and anecdotes about Rockefeller, then sum up with some negative opinions about him that seemed to come out of nowhere (being unjustified by the facts presented). I suspected that he'd come into the project with the popular evil caricature of Rockefeller, and couldn't shake it.

Contrast that with Ambose's "Nothing Like It In The World" about the first intercontinental railroad. In it he says he started with the usual extremely negative view of the railroad and the people involved with it, but after doing the research was forced to do a 180 and regarded it as a marvelous accomplishment and the people involved were amazing.