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

by Bryan Burrough

Book Overview

"Full of schadenfreude and speculation--and solid, timely history too." --Kirkus Reviews

"This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons--a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval." --Publishers Weekly

"What's not to enjoy about a book full of monstrous egos, unimaginable sums of money, and the punishment...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143116827
• ISBN13: 9780143116820
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.5" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

great for unknown or forgotten history

One of my favorite novels was about the rich Mr. Cullen and how he tried to use his power. LOVE AND MONEY. This book tells the inside story of how these men took big chances to get rich on oil -- and how many of them lost it. It is thrilling history.

Wildcats, Stewardesses and Hell with Cows

You might be tempted to read this book to better understand the oil industry or how Texas went from populism to conservatism or even how one might go about cornering the world market on a precious metal. Certainly you would learn about all these topics by reading The Big Rich. But you would be missing the point. The point of The Big Rich is a Texas-size good time. Why? Because the crazy factor is through the roof. The Big Rich in question are mainly the Big Four: Sid Richardson, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt and their families with occasional appearances by a "lesser" oil millionaires. Not a single one of them acquired their wealth in a boring manner. Physical derring-do, financial brinkmanship and fantastic luck all play a role in striking oil and amassing incomprehensibly large fortunes. There's something innocent and charming about the antics of the Big Four - opening fancy hotels in the middle of nowhere or creating their own private clubhouse for the boys, at age 30 - at least the antics that don't involve H.L. Hunt and his bigamous desire to propagate his genes at widely as possible. H.L. is quite the character or "crank" as he describes himself. I'd substitute "creep" in place of "crank" but there's no doubt that he'd be happy to drink someone else's milkshake given the opportunity. The fun hits the stratosphere when the second generation of big rich takes the stage. Bunker and Lamar Hunt are nearly as loony as dear old dad in their wacky hi-jinks such as the actual physical storage of a large percentage of the world's silver and their freelance wiretapping. Baron "Ricky" di Portanova seems to have been Patient Zero when it comes to the disease of EuroTrash complete with wife named Ljuba, pet monkey and marital pep talks from Kirk Douglas. In any other book they'd be the most entertainingly crazy characters. But in this book has Clint Murchison Jr and he will take your crazy and raise it ten times. In the space of a mere ten years he's launching a new company, building a resort and funding a pirate radio station in the Baltic Sea, and starting the Dallas Cowboys. And that's just his day job, Clint also has some fascinating hobbies: drugs (cocaine) and stewardesses (Braniff). As Burroughs explains, Braniff Airways "became one of his obsessions. In the early '60s Clint actually began attending their graduation, sitting in a back row eyeing his would-be conquests." Clint Murchison, I never met you and I'm amazed that your first wife didn't take an axe to your head on multiple occasions but for living a life that allowed such a sentence to be written I salute you, sir. You're the most crazily trashy person in a book filled with trashy crazy people. You go, Clint Murchison, wherever you are. (Also, way to cut out the middleman!) Clint was called to glory in 1987 and today most of the entertainingly crazy scions of the Big Rich are also gone or bankrupt. The tales of their declines aren't nearly as much fun to read but that's h

The Big Rich

Excellent book with a great story...well documented, although much of this has been written in several books...this is the best I have read as far as putting whole picture of the Texas oil rich together. Most interesting are the mini biographies of the semi big rich people...Glen McCarthy, etc

A Masterpiece

In a word, "The Big Rich" is a masterpiece. This is one of those books that will make you say "Wow!" many, many times as you read it. Bryan Burrough begins the story with a study of the four men who were the founding fathers of Texas Oil. These men were all classic "rags to riches" success stories but what is truly fascinating about all of them is how strange and peculiar they were. These men were not like upper-class Rockefellers, or nerdy Bill Gates types, but rather were relatively poor individuals who took enormous - and I mean enormous - risks and saw the risks pay off. Burrough fills this books with scores of stories about these men that definitely fall into the "truth is stranger than fiction" category. His chapters on H.L. Hunt are downright fascinating. If the book were to end just as a study of these men, it would still be a great book. However, Burrough goes a step farther and retells a large part of 20th American history through the prism of what these men started: Texas Oil. Burrough does a superb job of showing the influence that Texas Oil had on politics from post-World War II to George W. Bush. The book concludes with how these 'Big Rich' oil families collapsed (save one). From the collapse of Clint Murchison's empire to the Hunt bankruptcies, Burrough paints a vivid picture of how absolutely crazy these families became. Burrough's prose is superb and the narrative is very fast-paced, with hundreds of wonderful stories. His chapter on the Hunt brothers silver scheme is worth the price of admission itself. While the book is long (435+ pages), it is truly one of those reads you just won't be able to put down. This is a story that needed to be told and Burrough should be commended for having the audacity to research it and tell it.

Take a romp in the Texas oil patch

The rich Texas oil people have always been a source of fascination to most all of us. In this new book, Bryan Burrough gives us the history of the oil rich. He was a co-author, with John Helyar, of the exciting book"Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco." He is also a native of Texas. He leads us through the lives of the Texan oil rich, Roy Cullen of Houston, Sid Richardson of Fort Worth, and Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt of Dallas. "If Texas Oil had a Mount Rushmore, their faces would adorn it," Burrough writes. "A good ol' boy. A scold. A genius. A bigamist. Known in their heyday as the Big Four, they became the founders of the greatest Texas family fortunes, headstrong adventurers who rose from nowhere to take turns being acclaimed America's wealthiest man." You'll enjoy the stories that can only happen in Texas. For example, you'll see Hunt going between his three families, Cullen in a a war bond drive that and another wealthy Texan wearing and throwing away $100 bills as bow ties. I found this to be a well researched book. It's fast and exciting reading. It gives you a look at contemporary history but, at the same time, a personal look into the lives of those who lived large from the fruits of the black gold that poured from the Texas landscape. Highly recommended. - Susanna K. Hutcheson