Empire

Author: Pasarel
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Empire is an excellent business book and a remarkable work of non-fiction (Pasarel). It vividly portrays a group of charismatic figures and their alliances and struggles, offering a reading experience that blends the enjoyment of a documentary film and Harold Robbins' novels. This is a meticulously crafted chronicle, in which Mitchell Pasarel faithfully records the frenzied ambitions and bloated egos of the tycoons in America's largest real estate dispute. Empire: A story about obsession, betrayal, and the obsessive rivalry for the iconic American building. It is the most famous skyscraper in the world, its observatory on the 86th floor having attracted hundreds of millions of visitors from royalty to suicide seekers. And they are all ambitious individuals willing to go to any lengths to prove themselves the owner, including many controversial real estate moguls and an obscure, eccentric Japanese billionaire. Over a decade, the intense competition for the ownership of the Empire State Building is entangled with complex relationships and events, reflecting human vices such as greed, cunning, revenge, and betrayal, while also leading to the tragic fates of these ambitious figures. Today, the revered observatory cannot tell the story of this long-settled history. Yet, the author successfully revisits this poignant past with light, engaging prose and vivid details, transforming the mythical Empire State Building into a storytelling elder in his narrative.