Wall Street: A History

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Charles Geisst descibes the great history of Wall Street for us from the very beginnings of stock trading in this country to the present time, and also describes the great personaes of our Financial History, such as J.P. Morgan. If you are interested in the markets, read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Readable
Review: Charles Geisst has provided, in "Wall Street: A History", an informative look at not only the history of the stock exchange but also the evolution of American financial institutions from the free wheeling early years to the regulated giants we now know. Geisst does not only focus on stock exchanges but also how those institutions relate to the rest of the financial industry and to the economy as a whole.

Some of the more interesting bits of information that Geisst provides are the rather modest beginnings of the New York Stock Exchange (outside and under a tree) and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and its first chairman, Joseph P. Kennedy. Kennedy was the almost perfect choice for the job because he knew the ins and outs of illegal dealing on Wall Street and was better equipped than most people to detect and punish stock schemers.

Geisst's book is certainly more readable than most financial histories. It may be light on financial theory, but "Wall Street" makes up for it with a well-organized, inciteful look at the give and pull that created our modern day capital markets.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping History
Review: Charles Geisst tells a gripping history of Wall Street, from a tiny congregation of traders along the sidecurb to the most influential financial market in the world. Over a span of 200 years, Geisst examines the factors contributing to the rise of Wall Street and the Street's role in helping America become the most powerful economy. On the light side, he narrates the colourful lives and exploits of the Robber Barons who have come to symbolise Wall Street's predatory and free-wheeling past. This is definitely an engaging book but without being pedantic for history freaks.

Rating:
Summary: A not-so-random walk down Wall Street
Review: Charles Geisst's "Wall Street: A History" provides a chronological overview of the American financial system. This ambitious book purports to be the first such work to cover this topic. The story begins in the late 18th century, with subsequent chapters carving up the next 200 years into logical periods. Although the book omits several important events (e.g., Wall Street's role in the post-war development of Japan, anti-trust litigation against IBM, etc.), few will fault Geisst for being incomplete in his work. Significant firms and personalities receive due attention, and readers who were following the scandals of the 1980s and 1990s (Boesky, Milken, S&L's) will appreciate the latter-day perspective. My only quibbles are that the prose is a little dry, and the amount of facts crammed into 367 pages makes it tough not to feel a little overwhelmed. "Wall Street" ends with Greenspan's prescient comment about "irrational exuberance" in the US equity markets in 1996. The years that followed are presumably covered in Geisst's 2004 update of the original.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best on the topic
Review: I have been reading books by Geisst since I was an undergraduate at Syracuse. Unlike many other authors writing about the topic, he is the only one I know who knows finance inside out. Many writers on American history know little about the market & Wall Street. I read other books and find no mention of primary markets, only the stock exchanges.In this book, he tracks both and correctly so. That alone shows the comprehensiveness of his approach. This is a great history of Wall Street by a finance person. In the early 1980's I used a book of his as an undergradutae text. Now I find a history book. Not many other authors can claim that breath. This is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best on the topic
Review: Masquerading as a popular chronicle of the New York Stock Exchange, Geisst's book is poorly written, haphazardly structured, repetitive, and heavily influenced by the author's Republican viewpoint. In short, it is a bad piece of history; serving up the worst Wall Street has to offer.

Geisst fills his pages with the exploits of some of the wealthiest and immoral men to stride across the business world: John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Jay Cooke, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Michael Miliken and Ivan Boesky, men whose anecdotes meant financial panics that shook the nation's economy and spelt poverty for thousands of individuals far removed from Wall Street.

Chapter One, "The Early Years (1790-1840)," gives early indication to Geisst's complete lack of historical insight and overwhelming naïveté. Like many Republicans, Geisst looks back fondly to a mythical American past that did not exist, even in the mind of Alexander Hamilton. According to Geisst, in these hardy days of yore, "success was limited only by lack of imagination." He then brings to the reader the startling revelation that until the Civil War "land played the pivotal role in American investments and dreams."

Geisst's inaccurate grasp of history outside of Wall Street slips even further. Witness the following passage:

During the 1840s the stock market seemed to be the perfect example, of the growing popularity of the theory of evolution, first proposed in the 1790s by the English naturalist Erasmus Darwin but made universally popular by his grandson Charles Darwin. The ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest became the language of the market... (p. 36).

Firstly, Charles Darwin did not publish On the Origin of the Species until 1859. Secondly, Darwin's theories and catchphrases did not become popular in America until the 1870s and 1880s, with Herbert Spencer's theory of Social Darwinism. To suggest that Wall Street traders in the 1840s were batting about ideas that would not be published for another two decades is ludicrous at best.

Chapter Four, "The Age of the Trusts (1880-1910)," is an extremely exciting period of economic history for Geisst. "After 1885 the face of the country began to change," he writes, but fails to mention why or for what reason he picked the year 1885. It would be just as accurate (and simplistic) to say that the face of the country changed in 1816 or 1903 or even 1982.

But the birth of the trusts brings a Wild West spirit to Wall Street. "Battles similar to those of Drew, Vanderbilt and Gould were still being wages by other bear raiders intent upon seeking revenge upon bullish opponents." One cannot help but picture the short Terry Gilliam feature "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" at the beginning of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, in which corporate clerks turn into swashbuckling pirates, or Clint Eastwood-like showdowns between day traders, slinging shares of Standard Oil instead of six shooters.

Geisst's book as a biased to the right as this review is biased against Geisst's historical naïveté and lack of conscience. Apparently money has no morality, and Wall Street is best when it is left alone to boost the economy into the stratosphere. Unfortunately, Geisst seems ignorant of the fact that unregulated Wall Street has a tendency to run rampant all the way to economic collapse. In addition, he is shortsighted in failing to realize that the New Deal buffered the economy from market downturns, so that when the Dow drops 500 points in a day, investors go back to buying on Monday. Wall Street: A History is history at its worst, a badly written piece of literature that glorifies unrestrained greed.

Rating:
Summary: Dense, Enlightening, and Relevant
Review: The book is dense, but well-written and very educational. Dr. Geisst wrote a wonderful history of Wall Street from its early days of the late 18th century until the mid 1990s. Most of the colorful movers and shaker that Wall Street has seen throughout history are here and their exploits are lucidly, if not grippingly, described. From Geisst's accurate historical narrative it becomes clear just how speculative and wild Wall Street had been, until the Depression era regulations. This book is valuable for anyone interested in U.S. history, financial history, and world economic history. Pick it up today.

Rating:
Summary: A very good financial history Book
Review: This book gives good insight about the history of the most famous street in america. A must have book for any business person or student

Rating:
Summary: Would you believe it all started under a tree?
Review: Traders met under a tree in the beginning to trade securities, that's about it. Later, the securities were being traded on the "curb", then indoors, and eventually it became the global market that we know today. You will learn about the progress of the market, the booms, the busts, the market "breaks" and the recessions and depressions that followed.

This book is a complete history of investing in the US: Interested in the history of trading? Interested in the history of corporate debt (short-term securities, bonds, etc.)? Interested in how the US was funded to become the World power it is today? Interested in issues like program trading and market volatility? This book discusses all of these and many more, including the people, thinking, and developments that have made the market what it is today.

Rating:
Summary: Not really about Wall Street
Review: You should be aware that the title of this book (and its description) is misleading. It appears to be a history of Wall Street -- that is, a street in Manhattan and the area around it, but it is not. Instead it isa history of capitalism and business legislation in America. As such, it is a good book, and puts an interesting perspective on US history. If you are intersted in the history of New York City, this is not the book for you, but if you are interested in American business and economic history, this is a neat little book.