Share <Embed>

Buy New

$23.05

List Price: $32.99
Save: $9.94 (30%)

$23.05 + Free Shipping

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Book Depository US.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Ship to:

Select a shipping address:

Buy Used

$12.11

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Used: Good | Details

Sold by OUTLIER Goods

Fulfilled by Amazon

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$21.89
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: The Anthropologists Closet

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 4 images

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power Hardcover – April 8, 2014

by Nomi Prins (Author)

166 customer reviews

See all 9 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$12.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$23.05

$16.75

$5.30

Paperback

"Please retry"

—

$7.81

$4.00

Audible, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$34.40

$29.45

—

Who rules America?

All the Presidents' Bankers is a groundbreaking narrative of how an elite group of men transformed the American economy and government, dictated foreign and domestic policy, and shaped world history.

Culled from original presidential archival documents, All the Presidents' Bankers delivers an explosive account of the hundred-year interdependence between the White House and Wall Street that transcends a simple analysis of money driving politics—or greed driving bankers.

Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.

All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic events—such as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.

Prins divulges how, through the Cold War and Vietnam era, presidents and bankers pushed America's superpower status and expansion abroad, while promoting broadly democratic values and social welfare at home. But from the 1970s, Wall Street's rush to secure Middle East oil profits altered the nature of political-financial alliances. Bankers' profit motive trumped heritage and allegiance to public service, while presidents lost control over the economy—as was dramatically evident in the financial crisis of 2008.

This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how the same financiers retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation. All the Presidents' Bankers explores the alarming global repercussions of a system lacking barriers between public office and private power. Prins leaves us with an ominous choice: either we break the alliances of the power elite, or they will break us.

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power

$23.05 & FREE Shipping In Stock. Ships from and sold by Book Depository US.

Frequently bought together

Total price: $36.02

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power by Nomi Prins Hardcover $23.05
In Stock.
It Takes a Pillage: Behind the bailouts,bonuses, and backroom deals by Nomi Prins Hardcover $12.97
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by DTCompanyBooks&More.
$3.99 shipping

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Nomi Prins

71

Hardcover
$12.97
Nomi Prins

13

Hardcover
25 offers from $5.77
James Rickards

274

Hardcover
$14.41
James Rickards

717

Hardcover
$15.08
Nomi Prins

71

Paperback
$14.95
David A. Stockman

413

Hardcover
141 offers from $2.91

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

Review

“All the Presidents' Bankers spins an enormous amount of research into a coherent, readable narrative. Even her frequent kvetches about the lifestyles of rich and famous bankers are entertaining….There is always room for criticism, and Ms. Prins does it rather well. Banking was her first career before taking up journalism. She can talk the talk and is knowledgeable about the many points where banking and public policy intersect...Give her credit… for seeing through the façade of Dodd-Frank into the danger of another meltdown that lurks in our day of quasi-nationalized banking.”—George Melloan, Wall Street Journal

“A calm, authoritative elucidation of verifiable history”—Financial Times

“Even those who have read Secrets of the Temple, William Greider's massive and brilliant 1987 exposé of the Federal Reserve, will find Prins's book worth their time. She presents a new narrative, one that shows how the changing cast of six has shaped America's fortunes under presidents in both parties.”—American Prospect

"Prins divides her justifiably long text into digestible one- to three-page segments and seamlessly incorporates dozens of prominent banker profiles. Her work is highly recommended both to general readers and to students of financial history."—Library Journal

“A revealing look at the often symbiotic, sometimes-adversarial relationship between the White House and Wall Street... [A] sweeping history of bank presidents and their relationships with the nation's chief executives"—Kirkus Reviews

“This book offers a time line analysis of Americans who granted or wielded tremendous power in unelected positions of public trust, on behalf of US presidents and cabinet secretaries, from the 1880s through 2013… [Prins] tackles hundreds of handwritten letters, archives, and documents necessary to research her subject; her findings provide insight into how US policy advisers juggled their allegiances between their employers, clients, and contacts in the White House, and the good of the nation.”—CHOICE

"The relationship between Washington and Wall Street isn't really a revolving door. Its a merry-go-round. And, as Prins shows, the merriest of all are the bankers and financiers that get rich off the relationship, using their public offices and access to build private wealth and power. Disturbing and important." —Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley

"Nomi Prins follows the money. She used to work on Wall Street. And now she has written a seminal history of America's bankers and their symbiotic relationship with all the presidents from Teddy Roosevelt through Barack Obama. It is an astonishing tale. All the Presidents' Bankers relies on the presidential archives to reveal how power works in this American democracy. Prins writes in the tradition of C. Wright Mills, Richard Rovere and William Greider. Her book is a stunning contribution to the history of the American Establishment." —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames

“Nomi Prins takes us on a brisk, panoramic, and eye-opening tour of more than a century's interplay between America's government and its major banks – exposing the remarkable dominance of six major banks, and for most of the period, the same families, over U.S. financial policy.” —Charles R. Morris, author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown

"Nomi Prins has written a big book you just wish was bigger: page after page of killer stories of bank robbers who've owned the banks—and owned the White House. Prins is a born story-teller. She turns the history of the moneyed class into a breathless, page-turning romance—the tawdry affairs of bankers and the presidents who love them. It's brilliant inside stuff on unforgettable, and unforgivable, scoundrels." —Greg Palast, Investigative reporter for BBC Television and author of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits

"In this riveting, definitive history, Nomi Prins reveals how US policy has been largely dominated by a circle of the same banking and political dynasties. For more than a century, Presidents often acquiesced or participated as bankers subverted democracy, neglected the public interest, and stole power from the American people." —Paul Craig Roberts, former Wall Street Journal editor and Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury

About the Author

Nomi Prins is a journalist, speaker, respected TV and radio commentator, and former Wall Street executive. Author of five other books, including Other People's Money and It Takes a Pillage, her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune, Mother Jones, the Guardian, the Nation, and other publications. She is a senior fellow at Demos. Follow her on Twitter @NomiPrins

Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Nation Books (April 8, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 156858749X
ISBN-13: 978-1568587493
Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 166 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #313 in Books > Business & Money > Processes & Infrastructure > Government & Business
- #461 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Banks & Banking
- #738 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > United States > Executive Branch

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Start reading All the Presidents' Bankers on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Customer reviews

166

4.5 out of 5 stars

5 star		70%
4 star		19%
3 star		5%
2 star		5%
1 star		1%

Write a customer review

See all verified purchase reviews

Rated by customers interested in

What's this?

Business & Economics Books

3.9 out of 5 stars

Economics

4.1 out of 5 stars

Political History

3.4 out of 5 stars

Is this feature helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Top customer reviews

Essential reading on the deep, dark history of crony capitalism in America

ByJohn Butleron March 29, 2014

Format: Hardcover

Nomi Prins has done it again. With All the Presidents' Bankers, she shows in exhaustive detail how Wall Street has captured the US political and regulatory process: Left, Right, Up, Down, Sideways. Indeed, as she demonstrates convincingly in the book, the entire left-right paradigm of modern US politics is completely irrelevant to a proper understanding of what really goes on in the long, dark tunnels of power linking Wall Street in New York with K Street in Washington, and their deleterious impact on what some still purport to call 'democracy'. In this regard her book is written in the hard-hitting, anti-establishment traditions of such monumental works as 'Wall Street and American Foreign Policy' by Murray Rothbard and the more recent 'The Great Deformation' by David Stockman.
One particularly revealing aspect of Prins' forensic financial and political power investigation is the 'family tree' of the alliances she uncovers and exposes, many branches of which are cemented by marriage. While similar nefarious associations are no doubt as old as organized corporations and government generally, there has been a dramatic increase in their power and scope since the early progressive era in US history, where Prins sources many of the historical threads she weaves into a vast tapestry of questionable influences on powerful politicians, compelling circumstantial evidence of corruption and, in some cases, blatantly overt attempts to extend insider influence into areas it once feared to tread.
As one proceeds through chapter after thoroughly documented chapter, there arises a sense of helplessness regarding what, if anything, is to be done. But education and the enlightenment that follows are the essential first steps to an empowerment that might, just might, make a material difference. With All the Presidents' Bankers, Nomi Prins just might have written the text that catalyzes education and enlightenment into effective action, and for this she has done not only her readers, but all concerned Americans, a great service.

1919 comments 181 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A compelling historical anatomy of money, global power, and American character

ByZeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D.on April 8, 2014

Format: Hardcover

Wow. What a book. This "wow" refers not only to the breadth and depth and tautness of Nomi Prins' writing, but to the amazing sweep of interconnected relationships she reveals at the heart of American and global economic development in the 20th and 21st century.

Too often we get disconnected "front-end" understandings of such monumental political events as the Federal Reserve Act, Glass-Steagall Act, the Bretton Woods agreement, the Marshall Plan, and so forth. As an aware citizen who studies history and economy, Prins surprised me consistently with her in-depth research exposing the interconnected "back-door" origins and maneuverings of the powerful (and largely invisible) engineers of U.S. financial dominance. She does so in a clear, compelling, story-telling style that comes off equal parts forensic analysis and investigative journalism (with 69 pages of endnotes to back it up).

Nomi Prins trusts the power of the story to convey the outrageous twists of the American financial saga. She is not a polemicist, but a true writer, inhabiting the story, and letting the story inhabit her. When one reads the main title, "All the Presidents' Bankers," one might think hers is an op-ed driven book, but Prins' style and focus is better captured in the subtitle: "The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power."

I had a notion going in that I would be reading about quasi-legal power brokers and the people they manipulated. There IS some of that, but I received something deeper-- a social dissection of collaborators who glory in the power to control others and to control resources by controlling the tool (money) in which material welfare is measured.

I learned how "new" terms like "too big to fail" are really old trends scaled up in sophistication and scope. In addition, "All the Presidents' Bankers" speaks to human nature and the persistent patterns it takes when attached to opportunism and fear. I gleaned within this book not only the seeds of the material "American Dream" but of "disaster capitalism," the use of ostensible emergency to ramp up profiteering and ram through anti-democratic consolidations of power.

I consider this book required reading for anyone serious about a deep, nuanced understanding of the precarious historical and economic edge we find ourselves currently occupying. Our predicament did not develop overnight. "All the Presidents' Bankers" provides an aware foundation for the democratic exchange, production, and creativity we will need to develop to outgrow the immaturity and unsustainability of our current global financial system.

If we want to effectively move forward, we must learn how we got here. Prins' deft prose and fine mind offer the best kind of teaching and inspiration. Our experiment with materialism and power need not be wasted if its studied failure turns us toward collaboration, character, compassion, and courage.

11 comment 116 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A definitive work on finance and politics

Bycraig williamson April 1, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is an exceptional work. From president to president we see the connection between finance and our national leadership. Well documented and with a gift for storytelling . With many finance history books we get pieces of the puzzle . Prins in All the Presidents' Banker gives us the whole puzzle.From the early 1900s to the end of 2013 , a brilliant concept which compels you to not put it down. This will soon be a classic .