The Strong City

Poverty had drained him of all mercy, the great blast furnaces of the steel mills had burned all love and honor from his heart. Nothing was left but a hunger of wealth, a dream of power, and the terrible knowledge that only the ruthless could rise from the muck to live in the mansions of the mighty. Obsessed by this savage vision, he clawed his way from the slag pits to the peak of a mighty empire of steel. Men who opposed him were trampled, women who loved him were stripped of all decency and pride, left naked to his scornful lust. Except for one, whose strange, fierce love remained unconquerable, whose passion mocked him in every blazing triumph. Their wild, heart-rending combat runs like blood through the veins of this sweeping, magnificent story of America's growth, a story that only Taylor Caldwell could have written.