Award-winning journalist Gerard Colby takes readers behind the scenes of one of America’s most powerful and enduring corporations; now with a new introduction by the author Their name is everywhere. America’s wealthiest industrial family by far and a vast financial power, the Du Ponts, from their mansions in northern Delaware’s “Chateau Country,” have long been leaders in the relentless drive to turn the United States into a plutocracy. The Du Pont story in this country began in 1800. Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, official keeper of the gunpowder of corrupt King Louis XVI, fled from revolutionary France to America. Two years later he founded the gunpowder company that called itself “America’s armorer”—and that President Wilson’s secretary of war called a “species of outlaws” for war profiteering. Du Pont Dynasty introduces many colorful characters, including “General” Henry du Pont, who profited from the Civil War to build the Gunpowder Trust, one of the first corporate monopolies; Alfred I. du Pont, betrayed by his cousins and pushed out of the organization, landing in social exile as the powerful “Count of Florida”; the three brothers who expanded Du Pont’s control to General Motors, fought autoworkers’ right to unionize, and then launched a family tradition of waging campaigns to destroy FDR’s New Deal regulatory reforms; Governor Pete du Pont, who ran for president and backed Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution; and Irving S. Shapiro, the architect of Du Pont’s ongoing campaign to undermine effective environmental regulation. From plans to force President Roosevelt from office, to munitions sales to warlords and the rising Nazis, to Freon’s damage to the planet’s life-protecting ozone layer, to the manufacture of deadly gases and the covered-up poisoning of Du Pont workers, to the reputation the company earned for being the worst polluter of America’s air and water, the Du Pont reign has been dappled with scandal for centuries. Culled from years of painstaking research and interviews, this fully documented book unfolds like a novel. Laying bare the bitter feuds, power plays, smokescreens, and careless unaccountability that erupted in murder, Colby pulls back the curtain on a dynasty whose formidable influence continues to this day. Suppressed in myriad ways and the subject of the author’s landmark federal lawsuit, Du Pont Dynasty is an essential history of the United States.

The rise and fall of the DuPonts of Deleware.

"On January 26, 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medal winner and wrestling champion, was shot in the back by du Pont heir John E. du Pont at the family's famed Foxcatcher Farm estate in Pennsylvania. Following the murder, du Pont barricaded himself in his home for two days before he was finally captured. How did the so-called best friend of amateur wrestling come to commit such a horrifying, senseless murder? For the first time ever, Dave's brother, Mark--another Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler under du Pont's patronage--tells the full story. Fascinating, powerful, and deeply personal, Foxcatcher is a riveting account as told by the only person close enough to know the mind of the murderer." -- Page [4] cover.

Hidden in one of the smallest states of the Union, living in feudal splendor, is a singular family — proud, aloof, prolific —, which today controls a greater slice of American wealth than has ever before fallen into private hands. They are the Du Ponts of Delaware. The Du Ponts, who have long dominated Delaware, have only recently emerged into the larger arena of national affairs. In 1932, several prominent members of the clan, ardent wets, supported Franklin D. Roosevelt. This they consider their biggest blunder and are now vigorously fighting the New Deal through the American Liberty League. The present volume is the first full length portrait of this extraordinary family. “THIS is a lively excursion into the private annals of the mighty Du Pont family which has lived in splendour for five generations on its feudal barony in Delaware—industriously making gunpowder and profits. The inside story is revealed with wit and enthusiasm.”

Originally from France, the du Pont family settled in the Brandywine River Valley. Chateau Country is an intimate portrait of the houses built by this Delaware dynasty. Their first dwelling was a modest six-room house just steps from the gunpowder mills that made the du Ponts wealthy. One hundred years later, their largest house had 176 rooms and thirty-six servants on 2,300 acres of land. Since company founder E.I. du Pont built Eleutherian Mills in 1802, almost one hundred houses have been built nearby and occupied by his descendants. Many spectacular estate houses have been razed, but thirty-three du Pont family properties that still exist are explored and accompanied by anecdotes. Some, including Eleutherian Mills, Longwood, Gibraltar, Nemours, and Winterthur, are open to the public; others remain hidden behind stone walls. Chateau Country takes readers inside these houses and describes a way of life that has all but disappeared.