THE ROCKEFELLERS An American Dynasty by...

THE ROCKEFELLERS An American Dynasty by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Summit Books: $14.95) Collier and Horowitz are a rare subspecies of celebrity biographers: They write about families (the Kennedys, the Fords). “The Rockefellers,” first published in 1978, recounts the familiar history of John D. Rockefeller Sr. (about whom it was said that, although he didn’t break any laws, he was the cause of many laws being enacted), Standard Oil and perhaps the greatest American fortune.

John D. Sr. passed his mantle to his son, John Jr., who set out, by acts of philanthropy, to repair the family reputation in the national consciousness. Successive heirs would govern states and vie for presidential office.

The authors, having gained access to letters and documents and even gained the cooperation of family renegades, have done an admirable job of piercing the mystique and the mythology that surrounds the family. They manage to make the Rockefellers both human and in many cases sympathetic.

And yet the book suffers from an accumulation of detail. The Rockefellers are less interesting as individuals than they are as embodiments of national myth.