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Loading... Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Lifeby Steve Fraser
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  mercure | Nov 29, 2009 |  A Cultural Look at America’s Wall Street Relationship In July, 1849, the arrest of a local confidence man attracted national media attention. It seems the con artist, one William Thompson, genteelly dressed would approach his marks discreetly flashing a handful of cash. He would confide to the mark that he intended to invest the bundle in a sure fire business deal. He offered to invest the mark’s cash in the same deal if he would demonstrate confidence in the deal by pleading his money and gold watch. Thompson promised to return the next day with the watch and even more cash. Of course, he never did. Throughout history, Americans have held ambivalent views of Wall Street. One moment they see it as one huge casino. The next, they see it as a cloister of scholarly seers who possess a mystical secret for instant success. Steve Fraser has written a Wall Street history that explores that dilemma’s impact on the American psyche. Americans remain preoccupied with the sins and virtues of the financial markets. On one hand they remain committed to their ancestral values of hard work, play, equality, well-being and national purpose. Yet, they are still magnetically drawn to promises of instant wealth and success. This well-written, thoroughly researched history explores this chronic tension. Through the colorful tales of confidence men and aristocrats, he offers the reader unique insights into our collective view of American Capitalism and its changing culture. (  ) PointedPundit | Mar 25, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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This is an ambitious, fascinating tale peopled with infamous confidence men, cold-hearted fraudsters, and ruined speculators, through whose eyes Fraser tells virtually an alternative history of America. The 721-page book starts with William Duer, the country's original market swindler, who manipulated government bonds after the Revolution and died in debtors' prison. Duer's frauds left a deep suspicion of Wall Street among many of America's Founding Fathers and the general public. That suspicion only intensified, Fraser writes, after the panic of 1873, which Mark Twain satirized in his novel The Gilded Age, and the 1929 crash, after which Wall Street came under public supervision for the first time. After World War II, the Street staged a remarkable turnaround, as its "wise men" became key figures behind the Marshall Plan, NATO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today, despite the dot-com crash and corporate-fraud scandals, Fraser writes that Wall Street has still managed to retain a positive image in America's new "shareholder society." But he concludes on a dark tone expressing concerns about "gathering thunderclouds of world economic disturbance." He warns that any future market crash could plunge the Street back into disgrace while also reviving the political extremism and fascism of the 1930s. Fraser's elegantly written book manages to be both entertaining and thought-provoking. --Alex Roslin
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:16:53 -0500)
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Mr. Fraser must have read an endless staple of obscure novels and pamphlets and novels, as well as seen many hours of mostly long forgotten movies. I must admit I skipped a few pages here and there. (