Shadow Dynasty: How the Mellon Family Unmade America

Summary

How one of the largest family fortunes in American history was built and thrived in the Gilded Age, moved through history bending laws and society to its own devices, and helped create the political extremism and billionaire class trying to rule the country today

Shadow Dynasty begins in the 19th century with Andrew Mellon’s father, a self-made Scots-Irish immigrant who hated Catholics, taxes, public education, and other immigrants of all kinds. It continues with the remarkable story of Andrew’s rise as a genius investor, industrialist, and Treasury Secretary for three presidents who was considered the most powerful man in the world. Before he died in disgrace during the Great Depression, Andrew manipulated tax laws to secretly send his enormous fortune on to his descendants, including Richard Mellon Scaife, the “funding father” of the modern right-wing think tank industry, Richard’s sister Cordelia, the pivotal hidden benefactor of the all-powerful anti-immigration movement, and Timothy Mellon, the single biggest donor to Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign.

Shadow Dynasty is a character-driven narrative that brings the reader deep into lives of immense privilege. We follow the Mellon family as they move through iconic places and moments in American history.

• There were Mellons drinking with F. Scott Fitzgerald on the Long Island estates and polo fields of the Roaring Twenties and in the viewing box with Hitler at the Nuremberg rallies.
• The family helped build the nascent CIA in the World War II intelligence services during the London Blitz.
• When Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters rolled into Timothy Leary’s experimental commune of acid and free love, the Mellons were there. (They owned the commune.)
• Mellon descendants were close personal friends with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, partied and drugged their way through the star-driven ‘90s London social scene, made and lost enormous sums in the cryptocurrency casino.
• Mellons played a key role in exposing secret Pentagon investigations into the existence of UFOs.

The Mellon family story follows the arc of the nation’s history from idealism and expansion to tragedy, decadence, and disillusion. And while the reader will meet many fascinating people along the way, the true protagonist is the fortune itself. Shadow Dynasty is the story of what colossal amounts of money will do to people as individuals and to our society as a whole.

Shadow Dynasty includes a family tree plus an eight-page insert with color and black-and-white photos.