The Life and Death Consequences of Capitalism

Abstract

be? The process inevitably involves a series of compromises between telling a good story, consciously and explicitly evaluating the evidence, presenting the full evidentiary base, and that killer of prose historiographical positioning. Picking up Tycoon's War, one is immediately struck by the blend of compromises it represents. It has the frame of the usual scholarly apparatus: notes, bibliography, and index. But the notes are scanty unto vanishing, and they reflect the serious use of only a fraction of the sources shown in the bibliography. Furthermore, fifteen minutes of research in a library catalog immediately turns up several works that Dando-Collins has ignored, not to mention his almost complete failure to consult Spanish language sources. So what do we get for this compromise on the scholarly end of the scale? Tycoon's War, despite the titular emphasis on Cornelius Vanderbilt, is actually about William Walker's (in)famous filibustering expedition to Nicaragua in the 1850s. Indeed, much of the book is a biography of Walker, presented somewhat in parallel with a biography of Vanderbilt. There is little doubt about the compelling interest of Vanderbilt' s personality, and Walker's story can be made into a rollicking good adventure story, which is Dando-Collins's intent. Dando-Collins is a historian born in, and now resident in, Australia, who has written a number of other works with the similar intent of telling a good story and drawing his audience into the narrative. Indeed, in the last few years he has produced a veritable flood of dramatic retellings of famous moments in the history of ancient Rome; works he preceded with another on the Ponca Indian Standing Bear.1 In addition to its prima facie appeal and a generally entertaining prose style, Tycoon's War has the advantage of appearing at a time of great economic