Nicholas Coleridge interviewed more than 800 people to research this investigation into the power of newspaper proprietors. He reveals the complex web of rivalries, jealousies, alliances and obsessions of the press tycoons as they feud for territory and prestige around the world. He shows how, as they become fewer in number, the influence of the world's top 25 owners is dramatically increasing. From Rupert Murdoch to Conrad Black and Lord Rothermere, from the great American owners like the Grahams of Washington and the Sulzbergers of New York, to the vast family fiefdoms emerging across Asia and the Far East and the break-up of the global newspaper empires of Robert Maxwell and of the Fairfaxes in Australia, Coleridge discloses their foibles, their political manoeuvring and their eccentricities.