In the summer of 2002, controversy erupted in the idyllic town of Hershey, Pa., when the Milton Hershey School Trust, which owned controlling interest in the Hershey Foods Corp., announced plans to sell its company stock.

	"HERSHEY: MILTON S. HERSHEY'S EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF WEALTH, EMPIRE AND UTOPIAN DREAMS." By Michael D'Antonio Simon & Schuster ($25)

In the age of Enron, the board that ran the trust feared it was relying too heavily on one company for the school's support, but townspeople, workers and Hershey executives were livid.

They feared that the new owners would break up the company and close the chocolate plant. What, everyone asked, would Mr. Hershey do?

Nowhere else in America but Hershey would people dwell so intently on the wishes of a dead industrialist of the early 20th century, writes Michael D'Antonio in his new biography.

But as he demonstrates, thanks to its founder, no other place in America is quite like the town of Hershey.

D'Antonio's captivating book is, in fact, as much a biography of the town as it is of the man who built it on Lebanon Valley farmland and forest in 1903 to support his new chocolate factory.

Hershey, then 46, was determined that his namesake would not be a typical company town, where workers lived under the despotic control of their employers in tenement housing.

Instead, Hershey would offer parks and a zoo, a department store affordable to the workers and a trolley that could get them to and from work for a nickel.

	Hershey, publisher settle     The Hershey Co., which had claimed in a federal lawsuit that the distinctive chocolate bar on the dust jacket of a new book about its founder violated its trademark, has reached a settlement with publisher Simon & Schuster.     Under the agreement, the publisher will add an image in the upper left corner of the dust jacket's front cover stating that the "Hershey" book by Michael D'Antonio is "neither authorized nor sponsored by the Hershey Company."     The company said it was concerned that consumers might think Hershey authorized the book, whose dust jacket also includes a Hershey's kiss and two older advertising images.     In its Dec. 20 response to the suit, Simon & Schuster said the "trademark laws are designed to protect the public from likelihood of confusion, not to protect the monopolistic goals of a company that -- for whatever reason -- appears not to like the fact that a book has been published about its founder without its imprimatur." -- Associated Press

"It all worked because Hershey had created a remarkably strong local economy. The basis for this strength, and key difference between this and other company towns, was home ownership. Instead of renting to his workers, Hershey arranged for them to purchase houses and become in essence investors in their community," D'Antonio writes.

Hershey could be a temperamental and demanding boss; he might take the side of a worker in a dispute with a supervisor, but he was also known to fire longtime employees for seemingly minor infractions.

"Hershey employees generally understood that they served at the pleasure of a mercurial leader and that they'd better stay sharp," D'Antonio writes.

Yet for the most part, Hershey treated his workers well. If nothing else, it made good business sense; happy employees who lived in a safe, clean community would work hard and be less likely to agitate for higher pay.

But D'Antonio explains that, as with Andrew Carnegie, Hershey's tremendous wealth weighed on his conscience. The fortunes spawned by America's rapid industrialization raised many questions:

How could a moral person acquire great wealth? What did the wealthy owe their fellow man?

Hershey's answer was the Hershey Industrial School, which he and his wife Catherine founded in 1910. The school took in orphaned and needy boys and taught them a trade.

Known today as the Milton Hershey School, it now admits girls and has expanded its academic program.

Unable to have children of their own, the Hersheys saw the boys as surrogate children, especially Milton, who visited them often. In 1923, The New York Times revealed that Hershey had invested his entire fortune in the school's trust.

"Other rich men had given more to charity, but none had focused their wealth on a single small institution serving such worthy children," D'Antonio writes.

The book unfolds much like a good novel. With his opening account of the conflict in Hershey over the proposed sale of the school, D'Antonio creates a sense of suspense that builds throughout the rest of the book, which has the feel of an extended flashback, until one comes to the resolution.

In between are plenty of details of Milton Hershey's youth, his family life and the lavish adventures of the man who gave America its sweetest treats.