Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune

Anderson Cooper’s primary credentials for writing the history of the Astors come from his journalistic training. His knack for storytelling and critical engagement with people and sources has kept him at the top of his profession. However, this project is very personal for him as well. In the Introduction, Cooper writes that Astor grew out of his earlier collaboration with Katherine Howe on Vanderbilt, a book he wanted to write after the passing of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, to explain his own family’s history for his two sons, Wyatt and Sebastian. Cooper has said that, as a gay man, for a long time he believed he never would have any children, so their existence in his life has extra meaning for him as he thinks about the legacy that he wants to pass on to them. The Vanderbilt legacy is a complicated one for the Cooper family: “‘There were statues of my great-great-great grandfather [Cornelius] in New York,’ Cooper said in 2006. ‘I actually thought as a kid that everyone’s grandparents turned into a statue when they died’” (Burnet, Jane. “Five Surprising Facts About Anderson Cooper.