Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire ended the 80s with a debt the size of Ecuador's and on the verge of catastrophe. Houdini-like Murdoch survived, buying time, merging Sky with BSB, advancing into the '90s as one of the most powerful media barons the world has ever known. Shawcross tells two stories. The story of the man himself, his origins and personality, of how an Australian with Scottish Presbeterian grandparents became a US citizen owning newspapers and TV stations on 3 continents, a film studio in Hollywood, satellites in space, and selling to the world the 20th-century's most powerful persuaders - information and entertainment. And he tells the fascinating tale of the information and technology revolution which Murdoch (despite his own technological ineptness) knew how to exploit and which has made him so powerful.