Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900

Rating:
Summary: Well written Economic History
Review: Capital City is a scholarly examination of the development of New York City in the age of unfettered Capitalism when great fortunes were made overnight. The book explains in great detail how characters such as Moses Taylor, Cornelieus Vanderbilt and Jay Gould contributed in ways both beneficial and harmful to the growing American economy as well as to the economic and civic life of New York itself. The sense of a wide open country with all economic activity being governed out of the growing financial community gathering strenghth in lower Manhattan at the end of the Civil War is clearly conveyed.
This is a very entertaining and enlightening book. If you have an interest in History, Economics or Finance then I would highly recommend this.

Rating:
Summary: The World's Business is New York's Business
Review: In his book, "Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900", Thomas Kessner has taken what might be considered a dry subject and made it a swift-moving narrative of power, ego, and intrigue, on the one hand, and another narrative of civic pride, fiscal genius, and apparent historic inevitability.

What becomes clear in this epic story is that everything we associate with New York can be seen as deriving from its economic power. Certainly, the immense financial institutions, the extravagant city lifestyle, and the old shipping and railroad dominance of the city come to mind when we think of New York City's amazing economic influence. But Professor Kessner also makes it clear that other New York trademarks would have been impossible without it: the parks and the Brooklyn Bridge; the philanthropic endeavors and museums (sparked by such men as John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan); even its consolidation of all five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898 is seen as a reflection of the corporate consolidations going on in the business community.