For another book, The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, he was awarded the 1993 George S. Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing.

His father, Israel, was the owner of a discount store and creator of a stock brokerage firm; his mother, Ruth, was a bookkeeper.

[5] Chernow was voted "Most Likely to Succeed", and was class president and valedictorian when he graduated in 1966 from Forest Hills High School in Queens in New York City.

In the mid-1980s, he put his writing pursuits aside when he began serving as the director of financial policy studies with the Twentieth Century Fund in New York City.

In addition to writing nonfiction books and biographies, Chernow contributes articles to The New York Times[9] and The Wall Street Journal.

He has also commented on business, politics, and finance on national radio and television shows, and appeared as an expert in documentary films.

The Warburg family was a prominent financial dynasty of German Jewish descent, known for their accomplishments in physics, classical music, art history, pharmacology, physiology, finance, private equity, and philanthropy.

In 1997, Chernow published a collection of essays entitled The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor.

In 1998, Chernow published the 774-page Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., about the industrialist, philanthropist, and founder of the Standard Oil Company.

In his review for the Journal of American History, Stephen B. Presser, who is professor of business law emeritus at Northwestern University,[16] wrote: This book is one of those happy rarities: a popular biography that should also delight scholars.

...This is the kind of synthetic narrative history and biography that is rarely done to such high standards and is clearly one of the best introductions to the American formative era available.

Moreover, the way Chernow integrates international affairs, domestic politics, economic and constitutional theory, and astute psychological analysis is nothing short of wondrous.