Ron Chernow


Born in Brooklyn, New York Chernow graduated with honors from Yale University and Cambridge University with degrees in English literature. He then began a career as a freelance journalist. From 1973 to 1982, he published more than 60 articles in national publications. In the mid-1980s, he began work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a think tank based in New York City, where he was director of financial policy studies.

His first book, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance was published in 1990 and won the National Book Award for nonFiction. The book traced the history of four generations of the J.P. Morgan financial empire. The Warburgs, Chernow's 1993 account of the German-Jewish Warburg banking family, was awarded the Columbia Business School's George S. Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing. The book was named as one of the year's twelve best nonFiction books by the American Library Association and a Notable Book by The New York Times.

Chernow's 1997 collection of essays, The Death of the Banker, touched upon his earlier writings and chronicled "the decline and fall of the great financial dynasties and the triumph of the small investor." The following year Chernow published his biography of John D. Rockefeller, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The book reflected Chernow's continued interest in financial history, especially when shaped by compelling and influential individuals. The biography was selected by Time magazine and The New York Times as one of the year's ten best books.

In 2004 Chernow published his lengthy biography, Alexander Hamilton. This massive treatment of the first U.S. Treasury Secretary was widely praised as a sympathetic but balanced account of Hamilton's role in the republic's founding and early history. A related note is Chernow's attempt, though DNA research, to establish the exact truth about Hamilton's ancestry. The biography won the inaugural George Washington Book Prize for early American history.

Chernow is the secretary of PEN American Center, a writers' organization. He has announced that his next book will treat the life of George Washington, though publication is not imminent.