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A Most Wicked Conspiracy

Paul Starobin

A tale of Gilded Age corruption and greed from the frontier of Alaska to America's capital.

In the feverish money-making age of railroad barons political machines and gold rushes corruption was the rule not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's standard for avarice. Charismatic and shameless he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore. Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his unabashed deviousness.

A Most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie's plot to rob the gold fields. It's a story of how America's political and economic life was in the grip of domineering self-dealing seemingly-untouchable party bosses in cahoots with robber barons Senators and even Presidents. Yet it is also the tale of a righteous resistance of working-class miners muckraking journalists and courageous judges who fought to expose a conspiracy and reassert the rule of law.

Through a bold set of characters and a captivating narrative Paul Starobin examines power and rampant corruption during a pivotal time in America drawing undoubted parallels with present-day politics and society.
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  • Classification : History
  • Pub Date : MAY 5, 2020
  • Imprint : Publicaffairs
  • Page Extent : 320
  • Binding : HB
  • ISBN : 9781541742307
  • Price : INR 2,130
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Paul Starobin

Paul Starobin is the author of Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston 1860 and the Mania for War praised by the New York Times as a "fast-paced engagingly written account" of the hysteria that descended on Charleston South Carolina on the eve of the Civil War. He has been a frequent contributor to the Atlantic and is a former Moscow bureau chief for Business Week. He has written for other publications including the Wall Street Journal Washington Post City Journal Politico and National Geographic. He lives with his family in Orleans Massachusetts.

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