The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynast ies and the Triumph of the Small Investor

Vintage, 1997. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. "For anyone interested in the world behind the business-page headlines, thi s is the book to read." --Publishers Weekly With the same breadth of vision and narrative élan he brought to his monume ntal biographies of the great financiers, Ron Chernow examines the forces t hat made dynasties like the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds the financial arbiters of the early twentieth century and then rendered them vi rtually obsolete by the century's end. As he traces the shifting balance of power among investors, borrowers, and bankers, Chernow evokes both the grand theater of capital and the personal dramas of its most fascinating protagonists. Here is Siegmund Warburg, who dropped a client in the heat of a takeover deal because the man wore monogr ammed shirt cuffs, as well as the imperious J. P. Morgan, who, when faced w ith a federal antitrust suit, admonished Theodore Roosevelt to "send your m an to my man and they can fix it up." And here are the men who usurped thei r power, from the go-getters of the 1920s to the masters of the universe of the 1980s. Glittering with perception and anecdote, The Death of the Banke r is at once a panorama of twentieth-century finance and a guide to the new era of giant mutual funds on Wall Street. "Chernow . . . delivers a sound, accessible account of the forces shaping c apital, credit, currency, and securities markets on the eve of a new millen nium. " --Kirkus Reviews.