http://www.booktv.org/schedule/ Book TV alert C-SPAN2: One highly recommended show http://www.booktv.org/PublicLives/index.asp?segID=7541&schedID=462 ____________________________________
Saturday, November 25 at 7:00 pm EST and Sunday, November 26 at 9:00 am [1-hour shows] ____________________________________ [Andrew] Mellon: An American Life by David Cannadine [Cambridge University, Brit wit] Description: Biographer David Cannadine appeared at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC in October 2006, to discuss the life of financial pioneer Andrew Mellon. Andrew Mellon, founder of the National Gallery of Art, became a early investment banker and industrialist with a phenomenal capacity to repeatedly recognize whole new businesses and mentor them to success, starting up Alcoa Aluminum, Gulf Oil, and many more. As a laissez-faire capitalist running the Mellon Bank, he built Pittsburgh, its industries, and his personal fortune from $20 million in 1902 to $170 million by 1930, which he used to fund the arts and politicians who shared his philosophy. Three US Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover served him as Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. Only Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve Chairman) and Alexander Hamilton (founder of the Bank of the United States) had comparable long-term Treasury leadership power. Next he served in the 1930s as US Ambassador to Great Britain. In this very witty show and his book, the author examines Mellon's purchase of many world-class paintings from the Hermitage museum in Russia, documents his private funding of the National Gallery of Art, and explores Mellon's political persecution by FDR’s IRS, tax trial, and Mellon's successful exoneration. Author Bio: Cambridge University, British wit, David Cannadine is the author of numerous books, including "The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy," "The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain," and "Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire." He has taught at Cambridge University (England) and Columbia University (New York). Knopf Publisher. C-SPAN2: Andrew Mellon’s bio: one witty hour [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
