"Long before women got the vote and feminists looked like troublemakers in lace bonnets, Samuel Bush had accepted his wife as his equal." (Chapter 1, page 17)

"For all his reprehensible views on race and eugenics, D.D. Walker was surprisingly emancipated toward suffragettes, and endorsed women's right to vote. In contrast, his great-great-grandson said that admitting women to Yale in 1969 'changed the social dynamic for the worse.'" (Chapter 2, Page 30)

"Prescott continued selling rubber-tile flooring for another two years until his father-in-law pulled the golden cord that transformed an itinerant salesman into an investment banker." (Chapter 3, Page 40)

"Since the United States allowed no direct commerce with the Nazis, Bert devised a scheme for a Swiss bank, fronting for the German owners of Silesian-American, to buy the shares of the American owners and pay off the bondholders." (Chapter 4, Page 56)

"The war blurred all class lines by putting the sons of...