Ronald Chernow is an American biographer. He is the author of Washington: A Life, Alexander Hamilton, The House of Morgan, and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., among other works. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and other prestigious awards for his books, which have often been best-sellers. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Chernow graduated with honors from Yale University and Cambridge University with degrees in English literature. He then began a career as a freelance journalist. From 1973 to 1982, he published more than 60 articles in national publications. In... the mid-1980s, he began work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a think tank based in New York City, where he was director of financial policy studies. Chernow's wife Valerie, a sociologist, died in 2006. Chernow is a current member and past president of the Board of Trustees for PEN American Center, the eastern U.S. branch of International PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. His first book, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance was published in 1990 and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
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