The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

Imagine having the power to create your own world according to your deepest longings and desires. Then consider for a moment the solipsism and grandeur of the universes created by Bill Gates, Hugh Hefner, Steven Spielberg or even Oprah Winfrey and you’ll quickly realize there is nothing more disturbing or dangerous than those who start to believe they know how the rest of us should live.

The best-intentioned ideas and most creative fantasies can suddenly become distorted by the bloated narcissism and arrogance of their designers. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D’Antonio illustrates this in his interesting biography about the famous candy maker Milton S. Hershey.

Hershey (1858-1945) set out to build his own Eden by purchasing land in Pennsylvania where he built a gigantic chocolate factory that 10 years later would control the chocolate market in the United States. Around his factory, Hershey constructed homes and schools and parks and theaters, all sculpted according to his own imagination. It was an idyllic village that he hoped would represent capitalism at its best.

Much of what Hershey set out to do he accomplished. D’Antonio charts the evolution of the Hershey empire: his apprenticeship with a candy maker as a young boy, his relentless experimentation with caramels and chocolates until he had perfected his product, his trips abroad to study how candy was manufactured, his tense negotiations with his mother’s wealthy relatives in order to secure financing for his many ventures, and his final thrust into the creation of the magical Hershey village where today more than a million tourists still flock each year.

But things in Hershey’s world were not as rosy as they appeared. Hershey ruled with an iron fist, and workers were often frustrated by the long hours and low wages. He would sometimes fire employees for no apparent reason. His newspaper, the Hershey Weekly, offered scary warnings to its readers about the dangers of intermarriage, the aggression of Jews and the untrustworthiness of foreigners. So much for Eden.

In the end the reader is left frustrated regarding Hershey the man. It may be difficult to imagine the inner lives of historical figures, but we want our biographers to take a leap of faith into that realm.

D’Antonio hesitates to do so, preferring instead to remain at a polite distance, particularly from the uglier aspects of Hershey’s life. Hershey remains elusive and impenetrable; we want to know him better.