Wall Street: America's Dream Palace

by: Steve Fraser
Wall Street: America's Dream Palace
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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.

(20080813)

Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - Not history
I thought this book would be a history of Wall Street but it isn't.Sure it touches on some of the "titans" of Wall Street such as Morgan, Vanderbilt, Gould, etc., but only anecdotically to over and over and over again drive home the author's point that these guys were "bad."They may or may not have been but I didn't learn enough from this book to make my own decision.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - 4.5 stars-How Wall Street speculators are able to continually rip off Main Street
The author has written another excellent expose showing what ultimately happens when a forgetful public allows Wall Street speculators,aided and supported in their securitization schemes by the big investment banks (These types of institutions currently no longer exist after their financial collapse in 2008.However, one can be assured that, with the passage of time, speculators will attempt to regroup and start their schemes again)and commercial banks,to dominate the capital and credit markets ... Read More
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - 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 ... Read More
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - 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.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Wall Street
Wonderful, thorough history of the banking industry and Wall Street since the inception of this country. A must read!
Debb

 
 
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