Book description
In a career spanning four decades Rupert Murdoch has built News
International into a billion corporation. Through a series of
breathtaking gambles he expanded from his base in the Australian
newspaper business to achieve a preeminent position in the UK's media,
and to control a huge slice of Hollywood. Increasingly his company has
built a presence in online and digital media, most recently through
its acquisition of MySpace, and he is steadily expanding into
Southeast Asia.
But Murdoch is more than a predatory and merciless deal-maker. His
company does not only generate dizzying profits and growth rates. His
company generates the information that forms our understanding of the
world. He presides over what we read, what we watch, what we come to
believe about ourselves, to an extent that is without serious parallel
anywhere on earth. In the words of Michael Wolff, Murdoch 'held more
power over more time than any other contemporary figure'.
Working with unrivalled access to Murdoch himself, his family, and
his inner circle of advisors, Wolff shows how Murdoch came to wield
this power and the uses he has made of it. Murdoch has become almost
invisible behind the strong emotions he provokes. Now Wolff's account
reveals the qualities that took Murdoch to the top of the world and
have kept him there. In doing so he tells a business story that is
also the story of a man's life, and the story of our times.
Michael Wolff is a contributing editor and columnist for
Vanity Fair
, and a National Magazine Award winner and two-time nominee. His weekly
column in
New York Magazine
, 'This Media Life', was one of the most influential commentaries about
the media industry. He is the author of the best-selling
Burn Rate
, and of the books
White Kids, Where We Stand -
which became a multipart PBS series - and most recently,
Autumn of
the Moguls
. He is a frequent guest commentator on a range of national news shows,
and his journalism appears regularly in the
Guardian
.
