Then, in the early 1870s, a quiet, almost retiring man started to transform the landscape of American industry forever. He did not do it with fanfare or flamboyance.

He was not the type to holler across board rooms or make dramatic, grandstanding gestures. John Davison Rockefeller was deliberate, moderated, and methodical, ad infinitum.

Somehow by the turn of the century, he had amassed an empire that controlled 90 percent of the United States oil refining industry.

Not through brute force, but through a sort of genius based on patience and precision. The story of Rockefeller is a story of contradictions.

He was a pious Baptist who read the Bible every day and donated hundreds of millions to charity, yet he engineered some of the most savage corporate maneuvers of his era.