21 NOVEMBER 1998, Page 43

Christopher Fildes

A good year for fat books about the seri- ously rich. The World's Banker (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £30) is Niall Ferguson's sweep- ing account of the Rothschilds in their hey- day and after. Ron Chernow's Titan (Little, Brown, £25) does justice, for better and worse, to John D. Rockefeller. My railway correspondent, I. K. Gricer, was happier with The Oxford Companion to Railway History (edited by Jack Simmons and Gordon Biddle, OUP, £45). Picky as the author of The Poppet Valves of George Jack- son Churchward is, he could pick no holes in it.