Description: Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey were visionaries who built vast kingdoms of candy through the force of their imagination and determination. In this eight-year investigation of the candy business, former Washington Post reporter Joel Glenn Brenner takes us inside a world as mysterious as Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, where industrial spies jockey for trade secrets and paranoid executives fight an all-out war for America's sweet tooth.

Forrest Mars, the "Howard Hughes of candy", is one of the most private and innovative entrepreneurs in America, a brilliant autocrat who built one of the world's most unique companies.

Milton Hershey was a dreamer who wanted to create not just a company but an industrial paradise, and after making an immense fortune, he promptly gave it all away, to fund what would become the wealthiest orphanage in history.

What began as a fraternity of small family-owned businesses has grown into a multibillion-dollar cutthroat industry increasingly dominated by these two corporate leviathans. Brenner's investigation is authoritative, eye-opening, and written with a deep understanding of and feeling for her subject. The Emperors of Chocolate is a superb work of journalism and cultural history in the tradition of Ron Chernow.

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