Reviews for The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes

The average rating for The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-02-24 00:00:00 Joe Reuti This is a fun tour. It's particularly strong on the early years of H.L. Hunt, Roy Murchison and Sid Richardson (the Bass family founder). The book loses its way a bit with the big detour through the Glenn McCarthy story (which deserves its own book). The main problem with the book is Burrough's strident liberal political correctness. It's "ultra-conservative" this and "ultra-conservative" that over and over again. Burroughs can't fathom why any of these people, whom he otherwise admires, might not be political liberals, and he gives one ludicrous sociological explanation after another to account for it. The answer, of course, is that all of these folks were men and women of their times and were very much in the mainstream of their era. There is also the possibility that people like H.L Hunt, who were right about quite a few things where others were not, might possibly have been right about most of their political views, as well. That America MIGHT owe them a debt of gratitude. Burroughs thinks such an idea ludicrous. The men were political laughingstocks, he says over and over again. But if you can make it through the cloying apologies to his political masters (his editor and the reviewers, one supposes), the remainder of the book is a wonderful romp through a fascinating epoch of American history. And there are quite a few ecstatic, sordid, weird and wild moments along the way, from H.L. Hunt's THREE families (he was nearly a TRI-gamist!) to the great moments of long-delayed validation for the oilman's oilman, Sid Richardson. The book wanders thematically a bit through the stories of the second and third generations, but there are some good tales there as well, and we find out what ultimately happened to all those oil fortunes and what the descendants did with what was one of the biggest piles of loot in human history. Ultimately, I recommend this. Burroughs tells a good, long story well.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-12-22 00:00:00 Sid Schmidt A fascinating book about the BIG OIL BARONS. One of them took all his oil money and bought the Dallas Cowboys and bedded everyone of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Now that is what I call leading the league in my kind of scoring-ROFLMASO !!