Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey built business empires out of chocolate. In this history of the candy business, over eight years in the making, former Washington Post reporter Joel Glenn Brenner tells a unique story that is like chocolate itself, a rich blend of many compelling ingredients - in this case, biography and cultural history, investigative reporting and literary journalism.

Along the way, Brenner takes us inside a world as mysterious as Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory where industrial spies jockey for inside information as paranoid executives fight an all-out war for America's sweet tooth.

Forrest Mars, often called "the Howard Hughes of candy," was one of the most successful (and private) entrepreneurs in America, a brilliant autocrat who built a unique $20-billion-a-year empire. Milton Hershey was a dreamer who wanted to create not just a company but an industrial paradise, and after making an immense fortune, he promptly gave it all away. To this day, the Hershey company is controlled by a charitable trust and its profits fund the wealthiest orphanage in the world.