The Strong City

**The saga of a ruthless businessman, the steel empire he forged, and the woman he could never tame: "A virile story, vivid with life and force" (*Chicago Daily News*).**

The son of German immigrants, Franz Stoessel comes of age at the end of the nineteenth century with the conviction that nothing matters in America except wealth and power. As a foreman at the local steel mill in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, he is brutal to his fellow workers, believing that a man's sins can be buried beneath his fortune.

When a charismatic Englishman attempts to form a union at Schmidt Steel Company, Franz meets the threat with violent force. Nothing will stand in his way--not the health and safety of his colleagues, nor his tender feelings for a beautiful cousin who disapproves of his materialism. Time and time again, Franz makes the cold-hearted decision to put himself above all others--and reaps the rewards that elude his friends and family. But are his choices driven by strength or fear? And when the reckoning comes, who will stand by his side?

A compelling portrait of American capitalism, *The Strong City *contains the "real vitality" that made Taylor Caldwell one of the twentieth century's most beloved novelists (*The New York Times*).