"The story of the Astors is an extraordinary but true tale of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention -- and of cunning, determination, hard work, hubris, infighting, and greed. One of the wealthiest men to have ever lived, John Jacob Astor built a fortune through a ruthless expansion of his beaver trapping business, which he grew into an empire through real estate that enriched him at the expense of Manhattan's poorest residents. In later...