Morgan: American Financier - Hardcover

Strouse, Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 186046355X ISBN 13: 9781860463556

Publisher: The Harvill Press, 1999

Synopsis

Drawing on sources from the Morgan archives and the Morgan Bank, as well as those held by surviving relatives and colleagues, this is a biography of a financial genius, renowned art collector, companion of kings, world traveller, lover, gourmand, power broker, empire builder and robber baron.

About this title

Review:

As Americans cope with the social and industrial changes wrought by the computer age, we seem ready to view with more sympathy the men who shaped the similarly disruptive economic revolution at the turn of the last century. Less than a year after Titan, Ron Chernow's sweeping biography of capitalist par excellence John D. Rockefeller, comes Jean Strouse's searching analysis of J.P. Morgan (1837-1913), the merchant banker whose financial prowess enabled the great American businesses to grow and thrive. Like Chernow, Strouse takes a nuanced view of a man reviled by his contemporaries as a sinister monopolist. Morgan sought to stabilise the volatile American economy and raise the cash needed to fuel its meteoric expansion. His methods were controversial, particularly his fondness for industrial "combinations" that dampened competition, but Strouse's lucid résumé of the historical backdrop illuminates the thinking behind Morgan's actions. As in her groundbreaking biography of Alice James, the author never settles for received wisdom, instead reading previously neglected documents with a sharp eye to offer a fresh interpretation. She vividly limns Morgan's imperious personality and such extracurricular interests as his superb art collection. But it's Strouse's ability to clearly convey complex financial material that distinguishes this book. Her chapter on the panic of 1907, which Morgan was instrumental in halting, is as exciting as a good thriller and far more instructive. --Wendy Smith, Amazon.com

Review:

"Jean Strouse is one of the foremost biographers in America--a fine scholar and a natural writer, with the imaginative sensitivity to see below the surface of events and the intellectual power to give brilliant narrative coherence to what she sees. Pierpont Morgan, the central banker of the United States before the Great War, was one of the most contradictory public figures of the Gilded Age. In this engrossing story--an extraordinary accomplishment, filled with the vitality of the biographer and the fascination of her subject--Morgan has finally met his match."
--Michael Holroyd

Magnificent . . . the fullest and most revealing look at this remarkable, complex man that we are likely to get. "The Wall Street Journal"
""
A masterpiece . . . No one else has told the tale of Pierpont Morgan in the detail, depth, and understanding of Jean Strouse. Robert Heilbroner, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
It is hard to imagine a biographer coming any closer to perfection. "St. Louis Post-Dispatch"
Strouse is in full command of Pierpont Morgan s personal life, his financial operations, his collecting, and his benefactions, and presents a rich, vivid picture of the background against which they took place. . . . A magnificent biography. " The New York Review of Books "
""
With uncommon intelligence, maturity, and psychological insight, "Morgan: American Financier" is that rare masterpiece biography that enables us to penetrate the soul of a complex human being. " The Philadelphia Inquirer"

"From the Hardcover edition.""

"Magnificent . . . the fullest and most revealing look at this remarkable, complex man that we are likely to get."--The Wall Street Journal

"A masterpiece . . . No one else has told the tale of Pierpont Morgan in the detail, depth, and understanding of Jean Strouse."--Robert Heilbroner, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"It is hard to imagine a biographer coming any closer to perfection."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Strouse is in full command of Pierpont Morgan's personal life, his financial operations, his collecting, and his benefactions, and presents a rich, vivid picture of the background against which they took place. . . . A magnificent biography."--The New York Review of Books

"With uncommon intelligence, maturity, and psychological insight, Morgan: American Financier is that rare masterpiece biography that enables us to penetrate the soul of a complex human being."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Harvill Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 186046355X
• ISBN 13: 9781860463556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 800