Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: As a registered rep., I found Mr. Gordon's book a great read. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's living is linked to the market. This is a must read for investment professionals.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding History of a Global Power
Review: I purchased this book after watching the CNBC adaptation, and was prepared for a less than sterling treatment (given CNBC's past book adaptations). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Gordon has written an enjoyable and thorough treatment of the street. Indeed, in retrospect, the CNBC adaptation does not do justice to the work. I highly recommend this work.
Rating:
Summary: Buy Low, Sell High
Review: I received this book in error, having put on my Xmas list "Tournament of Shadows," the story of the other "Great Game," i.e. Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia. A more fortuitous mistake would be difficult to imagine. Gordon is a dashing, romantic writer with a keen eye for character. We start with the Dutch settlement of Manhattan Island, something of a commercial rogue state in the midst of ultrareligious English colonies. From there we learn of the rise of New York as a financial center, eclipsing Philadelphia and Boston, and the great canal and railway engineering works of the nineteenth century that made that domination possible. Gordon reminds us of oft-forgotten facts about Manhattan: it has no independent water supply, for instance, meaning that the best way of getting a corporate charter was to masquerade as a water utility. Thus was born Chase Bank - and that is but the mildest of the subterfuges of an era that brought us Vanderbilt, Fisk and Gould, and later Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street. Gordon then steers us through the war years, the post-war boom (spearheaded by Merrill Lynch's suburbanization of the stockbroker) and finally the tumult of the 70s Bear and 80s/90s Bull markets. Take a long position on this one.
Rating:
Summary: The great game is a great book
Review: If money interests you, then you should read this book. As a Wall Street professional I was enthralled by this easy read about the history of Wall Street. Mr. Gordon does an excellent job of taking us from Wall Street's unambitious start as a northern line of defense for a wilderness trading post to the its role as the most powerful stretch of pavement on Earth.Some of the unique things you will learn include 1. Who invented modern capitalism (hint: Tulips, 1700th century)? 2. The establishment of our federal tax system 3. What structure made NY city the US's largest city 4. Wall Street's first and greatest speculators 5. The creation of the Federal Reserve System Gordon does a great job of introducing us to the most powerful people the world may have ever known. The most notable include JP Morgan, arguably the world's greatest banker; Hetty Green, the richest (and most paranoid) woman in the world; Charles Merrill, the man who brought Wall Street to Main Street; and Michael Milliken, the world's most famous Wall Street villain to wear a toupee. The story of Wall Street is truly extraordinary. Its history is littered with courage, greed, jealousy, genius and lots of stupidity! John Steele Gordon does an admirable job of hitting all the salient points while making the journey enjoyable and memorable. Buy this book and read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Overview of Wall Steet's History
Review: John Steele Gordon is an engaging writer. Anyone familiar with his magazine articles in American Heritage knows he is adept at holding readers' attention over several thousand words. This book reads like a collection of magazine articles. The chapters focus on different personalities or events that shaped (or epitomized) Wall Street over the last two centuries. While there are some attempts to link subjects to their past (notably in the development of rules and regulations), the book reads more like a collection from various time periods rather than a synthesized whole. What the reader gets are interesting snapshots. And Gordon does make them interesting. Always an engaging writer, he mixes the right amount of fact and commentary to keep a credible story moving along at a nice pace. The author does justice to many fascinating personalities (Hamilton, Fisk, Gould, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Greene, Kennedy, Milkin and Boesky), and events (panics, depression, corners, theft, corruption, manipulation) that have shaped the American financial system since the dawn of our Republic. The chapters are just long enough to gain an appreciation for the subject at hand, but not too long as to bore. This book is not a study or treatise on financial products or their development. These are mentioned in passing so as to give familiarity to the reader. But, do not expect to learn about how stocks, derivatives or mutual funds (etc., etc.) work in detail here. While this is not an in depth study of the Street, it is an excellent and engaging survey that will interest the general reader.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Overview of Wall Steet's History
Review: John Steele Gordon is an engaging writer. Anyone familiar with his magazine articles in American Heritage knows he is adept at holding readers' attention over several thousand words. This book reads like a collection of magazine articles. The chapters focus on different personalities or events that shaped (or epitomized) Wall Street over the last two centuries. While there are some attempts to link subjects to their past (notably in the development of rules and regulations), the book reads more like a collection from various time periods rather than a synthesized whole. What the reader gets are interesting snapshots. And Gordon does make them interesting. Always an engaging writer, he mixes the right amount of fact and commentary to keep a credible story moving along at a nice pace. The author does justice to many fascinating personalities (Hamilton, Fisk, Gould, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Greene, Kennedy, Milkin and Boesky), and events (panics, depression, corners, theft, corruption, manipulation) that have shaped the American financial system since the dawn of our Republic. The chapters are just long enough to gain an appreciation for the subject at hand, but not too long as to bore. This book is not a study or treatise on financial products or their development. These are mentioned in passing so as to give familiarity to the reader. But, do not expect to learn about how stocks, derivatives or mutual funds (etc., etc.) work in detail here. While this is not an in depth study of the Street, it is an excellent and engaging survey that will interest the general reader.
Rating:
Summary: Breezy History of New York as a Business Empire
Review: The Great Game is a wonderful narrative history of Wall Street and New York as a financial center, the supercharged engine of world capitalism. John Steele Gordon is a gifted writer whose byline appears frequently in the pages of American Heritage. In this work he focuses on the men and events that made Wall Street the center of the financial world. Beginning with Dutch Manhattan, the city of the Knickerbockers, Gordon explains how Wall Street got its name, the vital importance of Dutch mercantilism and their invention of the modern banking system, the stock exchange, business insurance and the corporation - all of which were adopted by the British who transformed New Amsterdam into New York. The book introduces the origins of the securities business in the Buttonwood Agreement, the vital role of Alexander Hamilton, the consummate New Yorker, who set the new American nation on firm financial footing, the role of New York's great harbor, then the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened the west to development and transformed New York into the financial capital of America. Gordon introduces the colorful figures that have been players in the "Great Game" of the financial markets, from Jacob Little and other early promoters, the "Commodore" Vanderbilt, the mid-19th century colossus, to Hetty Green, millionaire and the "meanest woman in the world" to J.P. Morgan whose financial savvy saved Wall Street from crisis more than once. He writes of the important 20th century figures like Charles Merrill, the man who democratized stock investing and brought it to Middle America and finally Michael Miliken, developer of the "junk bond" as a financial instrument during the go-go 1990's. John Steele Gordon's "Great Game" is a lively and compelling account of the most important little street in the world by a writer who knows his material well and clearly enjoys sharing it.
Rating:
Summary: From the inception to present day stock market
Review: This book describes the events and how the stock market came into exsistence.It mentions the events that has fuelled the market booms and busts , the regulations and new rules that were placed after each bust to prevent another bust and the great people involved -- just reminds you that their is nothing new under the sun especially what is happening in the stock market now .I recommend this book to anyone interested in the mechanisms in the stock market and how the booms and busts have created a stock market that has created wealth and admiration all over the world
Rating:
Summary: The best financial history book I read
Review: This book gives a comprehensive history of Wall Street from the colonial times to the present day. It is very comprehensive and detailed.
Rating:
Summary: The emergence of the Great Power of Wall Street,
Review: This is a great and interesting book about the rise of Wall Street. Gordon summarizes the great amount of information into an a very readable 250 pages. Gordon also gives some short biographies of some of the very interesting characters of Wall Street such as Alexander Hamilton, Commodore Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, Hetty Green, and Dick Whitney. This history tells the rise of stock trading on Wall Street to the present period. It is interesting to see why initially the Dutch and the geographical position of New York assured Wall Street of becoming a world financial power of the first degree. This book details why the initial advantages plus the innovation of the financial leaders gave Wall Street the premier financial position in the world.
This book is well written with short biographies and historical summaries of the rise of Wall Street. This is a good initial read since it will show the reader why the NYSE and Wall Street become the financial leaders they are today.
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