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Wall Street: America's Dream Palace (Icons of America)
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Product Description
Wall Street: no other place on earth is so singularly identified with money and the power of money. And no other American institution has inspired such deep moral, cultural, and political ambivalence. Is the Street an unbreachable bulwark defending commercial order? Or is it a center of mad ambition?
This book recounts the colorful history of America’s love-hate relationship with Wall Street. Steve Fraser frames his fascinating analysis around the roles of four iconic Wall Street types—the aristocrat, the confidence man, the hero, and the immoralist—all recurring figures who yield surprising insights about how the nation has wrestled, and still wrestles, with fundamental questions of wealth and work, democracy and elitism, greed and salvation. Spanning the years from the first Wall Street panic of 1792 to the dot.com bubble-and-bust and Enron scandals of our own time, the book is full of stories and portraits of such larger-than-life figures as J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Michael Milken. Fraser considers the conflicting attitudes of ordinary Americans toward the Street and concludes with a brief rumination on the recent notion of Wall Street as a haven for Everyman.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #455043 in Books
- Published on: 2008-04-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 208 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Fraser, historian and author, reviews the complicated love-hate relationship between Americans and the financial markets by using Wall Street as the symbol of money and its power. By identifying four personality types that reappear throughout history, he explores more than 200 years of struggle between wealth and work, democracy and elitism, and greed and salvation. These types include the “pretentious aristocrat,” from the 1792 speculator who was jailed for causing the first crash, to Michael Milken, who was jailed in the 1980s for speculation in junk bonds. Fraser’s “wily confidence-man” category with numerous names tells us that such individuals are ever present in a market society. The “imperial heroes” include Cornelius Vanderbilt and “Jubilee Jim” Fisk—the latter identified as “the Donald Trump of the nineteenth century.” The “immoralist,” the sinner category, includes the Gilded Age’s Jay Gould and the “cascade of financial scandals beginning with Enron.” This is an excellent book that traces the history of Wall Street through those who shaped it, for better or for worse. --Mary Whaley
Review
"This book is written with Fraser's customary panache and scrupulous attention to detail. If you're after a fascinating take on one of our ultimate icons, this is it."-Mike Wallace, John Jay College (CUNY), co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Mike Wallace 20080415)
"Provides a rich historical context from which to reflect on the purpose and morality of our financial markets."-Robert Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance (Robert Shiller )
"I don''t know of a better book about Wall Street''s hold on the American imagination. Were it to be listed as a stock on the New York exchange, I''d bet on the quadrupling of its price in the first day''s trading."-Lewis Lapham (Lewis Lapham )
"In his delightfully written, sweeping history Wall Street, [Fraser] shows how . . . citizens react to the ups and downs of the business cycles and the towering figures who dominated each era."-David D''Alessandro, Toronto Globe & Mail (David D'Alessandro Toronto Globe & Mail )
"In this age of agitated amnesiacs, Americans have forgotten that nothing is new-that in other times money and power were forged into a conspiracy against the public. Steve Fraser connects vividly to that past, reminding us that this present financial crisis is not the first time our hearts have been broken by Wall Street peddlers of the American Dream."-Bill Moyers (Bill Moyers )
"Fraser is almost lyrical as he weaves together his tale of how the image of Wall Street fits into American culture and mythology."-Library Journal (Library Journal )
About the Author
Steve Fraser is an author, an editor, and a historian whose many publications include the award-winning books Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor and Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life. He is senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and cofounder of the American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and the American Prospect.
Customer Reviews
Well researched and elegantly written history of the Street
There are few institutions in America that evoke such strong emotions among the general public. For over two centuries most Americans have viewed the goings on on Wall Street with a very jaundiced eye....and with very good reason. From the Gilded Age to the dot.com boom of the 1990's the way business was conducted on Wall Street would have an enormous impact of the lives of farmers, factory workers and shopkeepers across this nation. Author Steve Fraser has managed to capture the essence of this love-hate relationship with the Street in his marvelous new book "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace".
For those who know little about the origins of Wall Street Steve Fraser presents a brief history in his Introduction to get us all up to speed.
Interestingly enough, this book has only four chapters, each scrutinizing the roles of what Fraser considers to be four iconic Wall Street types including the aristocrat, the confidence man, the hero and the immoralist. In each chapter, Fraser presents vivid portraits of those legendary individuals who for better or for worse have made their mark in the world of high finance. Fraser spotlights such diverse charactors as J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Charles Ponzi and Michael Milken to name but a few. Fraser also discusses at some length how the dot.com boom lured many Americans into the stock market for the very first time and how so many of us were burned by the unscrupulous actions of con men like Michael Milken, corporations like Enron and WorldCom, as well as by a variety of unsavory speculators and day traders.
Overall I found "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace" to be an extremely informative and highly enjoyable read. I enjoy writers with outstanding vocabularies and Steve Fraser can turn a phrase with the best of them.
Lots of great information packed into this terrific little book. Highly recommended!
Wall Street
Wonderful, thorough history of the banking industry and Wall Street since the inception of this country. A must read!
Debb
Enormously Informative
Steve Fraser has a wonderful, crisp style that moves your eye
along the page and onto the next. This is one of those rare
non-fiction books you wish were longer.
