Shadow Dynasty

‘In Shadow Dynasty, Kevin Carey masterfully unspools the hidden history of the fortune that shaped the First Gilded Age — and, largely unnoticed, helped usher in the second … This is the essential story of how one family’s money became the decoder key to our oligarchic times, and why the troubled country you’re living in now is one they built.’

-- Daniel Schulman, New York Times bestselling author of Sons of Wichita and The Money Kings

‘Shadow Dynasty reads like great historical fiction: castles, polo grounds, adultery, and air disasters. It is, in fact, history — a forensic account of American aristocracy as entrenched as any British baronial line. Many books show how hard it is for American families to rise today; Kevin Carey shows how the families already at the top use a carefully designed system to stay there.’

-- Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, School of Public Policy, London School of Economics

‘More than just a fascinating tale of one of America’s wealthiest families, Shadow Dynasty is a captivating biography of the vast Mellon fortune that has profoundly shaped the nation for over a century. In this important and groundbreaking book — full of riveting stories of the super-rich — Kevin Carey masterfully shows how money and power work in the United States. To fully understand this country — including the Trump era — you should read this book.’

-- David Corn, New York Times bestselling author of Russian Roulette and How Russia Won

“Kevin Carey’s Shadow Dynasty is a beautifully written and magisterial narrative about one of our nation’s most powerful and secretive families — the Mellons of Pittsburgh … It’s quite a tale; I couldn’t put it down.’

-- William D. Cohan, author of Money to Burn and Power Failure

‘This epic family drama is a profoundly American story. It’s also an urgent one. Kevin Carey has scaled the walls that protect the rich and powerful to show us how they really live and think, and how they’ve shaped American society from the Gilded Age to the ICE raids. It’s all here: the industriousness, the greed, the divorces, the corruption. This magisterial saga gives a fresh and much-needed understanding of our country.’

-- Christopher Leonard, author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money

‘Shadow Dynasty is a riveting, fast-paced family saga spanning five generations of Mellons, from their origins as a Gilded Age banking empire, to the roaring Twenties Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and on through the generations, who each put their distinctive stamp on American society, business, and philanthropy — channeling their giant fortune into causes as diverse as the March on Washington, Timothy Leary’s acid tests, and the modern conservative movement. Vividly written, this is the story of one family that provides a window into the history of the country itself.’

-- Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance and 1873

‘In his thoroughly researched and entertaining account of the sprawling multi-billionaire Mellon family, Kevin Carey chronicles the radically different ways that generations have shaped American life, from funding Civil Rights measures, the hallucinogenic Sixties, underwriting foreign health care, and boosting Donald Trump.’

-- Meryl Gordon, author of Bunny Mellon and The Woman Who Knew Everyone<