Standing alongside J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905) was one of the most colorful and controversial public figures in nineteenth-century America. "Robber Baron" is the first biography of the streetcar magnate who was the mastermind behind Chicago's Loop Elevated and the London Underground and namesake of the University of Chicago's observatory. Yerkes also served as the inspiration for Frank Cowperwood, the ruthless protagonist of Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire: "The Financier," "The Ti"t"an," and "The Stoic." Despite various...