The first book to explore the immense cultural contributions of one of America's wealthiest and most influential families: the Rockefellers.Abby Aldrich Rockefeller sparked her family's passion for art, but it was her husband, John D. Rockefeller Jr., who once was hailed as the "greatest friend and patron of the arts since Florence's Lorenzo de Medici." Together and separately they, as well as their descendents, became a major force on the American art scene. The dozen Rockefeller-sponsored museums, including MoMA and the Cloisters, are among the world's finest. Their architectural projects—Rockefeller Center, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, Lincoln Center—are equally stellar. The family also enriched existing institutions with entire collections of modern, Asian, "primitive," and folk art, in addition to ancient artifacts.Based on a wealth of information culled from the family's extensive archives, America's...