Security Brokers & Investment Managment, Business Law - General & Miscellaneous, New York City - History, Stocks - Investments, Financial Industry - History, Securities - General & Miscellaneous, Corporation Law - General & Miscellaneous, Management - Gen
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Overview
They laid the foundations of American finance and defined the American brand of capitalism. They bankrolled wars, were the impetus behind the building of the first transcontinental railroad system, and fueled a fledgling nation’s grandiose dreams of empire. S&M Allen, J. P. Morgan & Co., Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers...they were the great Wall Street partnerships, and for well over a century, through a combination of financial genius, political chicanery, and the audacity of Caesars, they wielded unprecedented influence over the business, financial, and political landscapes of a nation.The Last Partnerships combines rigorous scholarship with journalism at its best to present a panoramic history of the rise and fall of the great financial houses—from the “Yankee Bankers,” at the turn of the 19th century, up to Goldman Sachs’ historic IPO in 1999—tracing their origins, their successes and failures over the years, and the reasons for their ultimate demise. The Last Partnerships is must-reading for history buffs and everyone interested in the world of finance behind the business-page headlines
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Despite the subtitle, this book doesn't throw wide the back-room doors of major investment banking and brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. Instead, it provides a general history of Wall Street, organized in chronological chapters, each featuring two famous houses. The first chapter covers 1812 to 1873, focusing on Clark Dodge and Jay Cooke. The last chapter runs from the 1930s to the present, featuring Lazard Freres and Goldman Sachs. Most of the material can be found in the author's previous works, 100 Years of Wall Street and Wall Street: A History. This reorganization might have yielded new insights had it shown how certain firms helped shape their time and place, and vice versa, or perhaps if it had focussed on the passing of the torch from era to era. As it stands, Ron Chernow's The Death of the Banker and Martin Mayer's The Bankers and even Geisst's previous works are more compelling and better written. Still, Geisst has more understanding of finance than most popular financial historians; despite the drawbacks of this Wall Street history, it represents the various firms fairly and aptly. (May 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Geisst (Wall Street: A History; Monopolies in America: Empire Builders and their Enemies from Jay Gould to Bill Gates) here provides a history of U.S. investment banking over the past 200 years. As the title indicates, investment banking has shifted from partnership activity to corporate ownership. Geisst creditably describes the forces at work in the creation of capital, providing some sociological context through ethnicity and gender issues. Geisst accounts for a number of factors that have caused investment banking to undergo a sea change: increasingly high dollar amounts, the ability of inexperienced traders to bankrupt firms, and the demise of relationship banking. He shows how cutthroat competition changed investment banking from a business based on relationships to one based on the deal itself. This book's appeal will be limited to those interested in financial history. Steven Silkunas, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Book Details
Published
January 1, 2003
Publisher
McGraw Hill Higher Education
Pages
364
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780071413176