Everyone wants to be Andrew Carnegie, but the vast majority of us are more Willy Loman. These reviews sum it up best.

Newsday – “In his book, Sandage explains how the 19th century changed people’s ideas about winning and losing.”

Wall Street Journal – “Born Losers, admirably concise and formidably researched, is the history of America’s reverse Horatio Algers.”

This quote from the book got me thinking:

“We are merrily cynical about whether the average tycoon really tugged on those bootstraps, but we still believe with deadly seriousness that the reasons for failure are usually individual.”