The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar (Enterprise)

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W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 M11 1 - 240 pages

An "insightful" (Publishers Weekly) history of the development of American capitalism and the men who made it great.

Most Americans are familiar with the political history of the United States, but there is another history woven all through it, a largely forgotten history—the story of the money men. Acclaimed historian H. W. Brands brings them back to life: J. P. Morgan, who stabilized a foundering U.S. Treasury in 1907; Alexander Hamilton, who founded the first national bank, and Nicholas Biddle, under whose directorship it failed; Jay Cooke, who helped to finance the Union war effort through his then-innovative strategy of selling bonds to ordinary Americans; and Jay Gould, who tried to corner the market on gold in 1869 and as a result brought about Black Friday and fled for his life.

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Contents

The Money Question
15
The Bank War
57
The Bonds of Union
97
The Great Gold Conspiracy
131
The Transit of Jupiter
159
The Money Answer
199
For Further Reading
217
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About the author (2010)

Best-selling author H. W. Brands is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History at the University of Texas. He lives in Austin.

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