50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
nobody like him, February 22, 2002
i read ron chernow's book on j. p. morgan before reading this one and initially did not think i would like this one as much, but ended up liking it more. i recommend reading both of them to get a complete picture of morgan, who was, with john d. rockefeller and theodore roosevelt, perhaps the most influential man in america between 1875 and 1925.
chernow's book is really about the house of morgan, and j. p. morgan dies halfway through it, but jean strouse devotes all of her attention to j. p. morgan himself, both to his business and pleasure. he was a man of large ego and appetites, but enough of a fiduciary to be prudent about what he did in all spheres.
both biographers, chernow and strouse, seemed to grow fond of their subject, which is not unusual, except that morgan is a difficult man to warm to. at times they seemed to rationalize or explain away some pretty nasty behavior, e.g., his bigotry and prejudice, which, again, as a fiduciary, he did not let get in the way of making money. if i were jewish, i would not be nearly so tolerant of morgan's virulent anti-semitism as chernow and strouse charitably were. they seemed to accept it as a by- product of his time and class, and i think every biographer ends up liking his subject.
morgan could be an arrogant, haughty jerk and a prick to people, including his family, and was indifferent to his second wife -- his first, the love of his life, having died right after they were married -- and son -- an ineffectual but well-meaning typical "scion" -- but morgan grew up when the upper classes felt entitled to think and act that way, assuming the rightness of their noblesse station in this world. and, he was in a hardball business and playing for keeps with the biggest money of anyone, at any time.
one thing both chernow and strouse point out is how morgan -- seemingly the jupiter above all men -- and his financial house -- seemingly above all nations and boundaries and oriented toward britain rather than toward america -- periodically had to be reined in by the federal government when they got too bold or indifferent to the laws of nations or what was in the usa's best interests.
the law of money was all morgan and his men understood and they thought it was paramount. their machinations, while mostly for the public good and economic development of this country, caused enough distrust of wall street bankers and financiers that more government regulation was called for and ultimately, the federal reserve bank was created, right after he died.
on the positive side, morgan was an inarticulate but, deep inside, a crudely warm man, who genuinely perceived of his role as steward of the american banking and financial system, to enable large amounts of capital to flow westward from europe, to enable the usa to industrialize and expand. he was our banking system and federal reserve system all rolled into one and there is no one like him and has not been since he died. alan greenspan does only a third of what morgan did for the u. s. economy.
jean strouse does a good job of explaining all of this in a way that is not arcane or boring. i am not versed in banking and economics and some of what morgan did in effecting the acquisition and push of big money into the economy and railroads, oil, and other emerging industries is difficult to explain without going into some technical detail.
jean strouse carries this off and i imagine that when she started she had to educate herself about economics to know her subject well enough to not make a fool of herself, as she knew that everyone on wall street would read her book. her discussion of economics a la morgan is both interesting and educational.
the non-business aspect of strouse's book and treatment of morgan the man is just as interesting. morgan was not a philanthopist on the scale of rockefeller, but was a fabulous art and rare book and antiquity collector. a good portion of his collections, except for what his son sold off, became the basis for several new york museum collections that we now enjoy.
and, as strouse points out, morgan was one of the first to have what we now call a rustic lake cottage, on raquette lake in the adirondacks; he spent little time there himself because it frankly was not his style. he also had the nineteenth century version of a phallic cigarette boat, a darth vaderesque, black on black hundred foot yacht, the corsair, which would ominously announce his presence whenever it would glide into a foreign port and tie up; suffice it to say that people far more important than the local press took note of his comings and goings.
i heartily recommend that you read this book. stick with it, as it seems to bog down early on in list-making and daily living detail, but then picks up and finishes strong. you will find it interesting, well-written and worthwhile.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing historical perspective, June 24, 1999
By A Customer
Strouse goes into amazing detail (at times a bit thick, but always fascinating) as she charts Morgan's entire life--out of which context emerge the outlines of a number of the most significant shifts in emerging global finance coming out of the American Civil War: 1) moving captial to the US from Europe to refinance Civil War debt and contribute to the building of the US industrial base 2)a broad shift from debt-based financing to equity-based financing, and 3)the (at the time) scandalous shift in valuing companies from book-value to multiples of earnings (the financial media of the day descried that Morgan, at one point, got international backing for a shipping combination valued at between 2 and 3 times annual revenues).
Insights the Strouse bio makes accessible inform the daily world around us in bounteous ways that make this book an incredibly worthwhile (as well as compelling) read. In this morning's WSJ, there was discussion of Iran now making good on previously nationalized assets so as to make Iran a more attractive place for international investors; the discussion of the bond market in light of the stock market's powerful gains continues; and individual investors as well as institutions are forever coming to terms with the fact that the market continues to support companies with what have traditionally been considered wildly high p/e ratios.
Add to the mix that Morgan was a fascinating man--as interested in the details of the dresses he had made for his wife, daughters, and mistresses as in the contents of his library, the speed of and fittings on his latest yacht, as well as the characters of the men who worked for him and with whom he chose to form investing syndicates, and you have a delightful, powerful biography.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
History is subject to a tyranny of the articulate, April 12, 2002
JP Morgan ruled finance like Napoleon or Caesar ruled the battlefield, but he could never express himself clearly. On a good day he was about as eloquent as George W. Bush. Yet he would see what needed to be done and do it; words never entered the process.
This theme runs through Ms. Strouse's book (the review's title is a quote). Yet Morgan's inability to clearly express himself in no way affected his ability to understand his work. Ms. Strouse wrote a beautifully ironic book: an eloquent elegy to an inarticulate leader, and this way voicing in her biography what Morgan could not himself express.
The book gives serious readers a refreshing dose of humility; it is a welcome argument on why we need to look beyond the sound bite when evaluating today's leaders (such as GWB, like him or not).
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