Oil History: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography - E. Richard Neff - Hardcover Book

I have a copy of this obscure 1976 book on a remainders table, years ago, and read it with gusto. Its first chapter is a recounting of how many of the great family fortunes of America originated in the careers of egregious fraud, graft, and swindling of such worthies as Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt. When these captains of industry are referred to as robber barons, it is no great metaphorical stretch, for in those days before trustbusting and the SEC, large-scale crime was a wonderful way of amassing large-scale fortune and the social and political respectability that accrues thereto.

It then goes on to recount the careers of a number of grifters of lesser social standing, lovingly detailing their many cons, long and short, and their endlessly colorful lives. Not so much a "true crime" book, as a work of "real American history."