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Wall Street: America's Dream Palace (Icons of America) Paperback – April 14, 2009

by Steve Fraser (Author)

4.0 11 ratings

Part of: Icons of America (18 books)

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Meet the imperious aristocrat, the wily confidence man, the Napoleonic hero, and the soulless sinner—iconic figures on the Street since the days of the Revolution

Wall Street: no other place on earth is so singularly identified with money and the power of money. And no other American institution has inspired such deep moral, cultural, and political ambivalence. Is the Street an unbreachable bulwark defending commercial order? Or is it a center of mad ambition?

This book recounts the colorful history of America’s love-hate relationship with Wall Street. Steve Fraser frames his fascinating analysis around the roles of four iconic Wall Street types—the aristocrat, the confidence man, the hero, and the immoralist—all recurring figures who yield surprising insights about how the nation has wrestled, and still wrestles, with fundamental questions of wealth and work, democracy and elitism, greed and salvation. Spanning the years from the first Wall Street panic of 1792 to the dot.com bubble-and-bust and Enron scandals of our own time, the book is full of stories and portraits of such larger-than-life figures as J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Michael Milken. Fraser considers the conflicting attitudes of ordinary Americans toward the Street and concludes with a brief rumination on the recent notion of Wall Street as a haven for Everyman.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In this age of agitated amnesiacs, Americans have forgotten that nothing is new – that in other times money and power were forged into a conspiracy against the public. Steve Fraser connects vividly to that past, reminding us that this present financial crisis is not the first time our hearts have been broken by Wall Street peddlers of the American Dream.” – Bill Moyers

-- Bill Moyers

"This book is written with Fraser’s customary panache and scrupulous attention to detail. If you’re after a fascinating take on one of our ultimate icons, this is it.”―Mike Wallace, John Jay College (CUNY), co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
-- Mike Wallace

"Provides a rich historical context from which to reflect on the purpose and morality of our financial markets."―Robert Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance -- Robert Shiller

"I don't know of a better book about Wall Street's hold on the American imagination. Were it to be listed as a stock on the New York exchange, I'd bet on the quadrupling of its price in the first day's trading."―Lewis Lapham -- Lewis Lapham

"Fraser is almost lyrical as he weaves together his tale of how the image of Wall Street fits into American culture and mythology. . . . His book is . . . recommended for larger business collections in both public and academic libraries."―Library Journal ― Library Journal Published On: 2008-04-15

"Fraser . . . reviews the complictaed love-hate relationship between Americans and the financial markets by using Wall Street as the symbol of money and its power. . . . This is an excellent book that traces the history of Wall Street through those who shaped it, for better or for worse."―Booklist ― Booklist Published On: 2008-05-01

"The history of American attitudes toward the financiers of Wall Street, as shown in newspapers, novels and prosecutions, is the subject of Fraser's book. It's a remarkable tale, not just for the plain facts of what they did but also for the dramatic swings in their image. Were they heroes or con men, aristocrats or immoral scoundrels? It depended on the era, and to some extent on whether their successes seemed to be enriching the rest of us."—Floyd Norris, New York Times Book Review -- Floyd Norris ― New York Times Book Review Published On: 2008-04-20

"Wall Street is the fabled heart of American capitalism. And according to historian and author Steve Fraser, four metaphorical images are central to the Wall Street mystique: The Aristocrat, The Confidence Man, The Hero, and The Immoralist. In his delightfully written, sweeping history Wall Street, he shows how those four types have continually appeared and re-appeared throughout U.S. stock market and business history, as citizens react to the ups and downs of the business cycles and the towering figures who dominated each era."―David D'Alessandro, Toronto Globe & Mail -- David D'Alessandro ― Toronto Globe & Mail Published On: 2008-08-13

"The history of American attitudes toward the financiers of Wall Street . . . [is] a remarkable tale. . . . Were they heroes or con men, aristocrats or immoral scoundrels?"―Floyd Norris, New York Times Book Review -- Floyd Norris ― New York Times Book Review Published On: 2008-04-20

"In his delightfully written, sweeping history Wall Street, [Fraser] shows how . . . citizens react to the ups and downs of the business cycles and the towering figures who dominated each era."―David D'Alessandro, Toronto Globe & Mail -- David D'Alessandro ― Toronto Globe & Mail Published On: 2008-08-13

"Fraser is almost lyrical as he weaves together his tale of how the image of Wall Street fits into American culture and mythology."―Library Journal ― Library Journal Published On: 2008-04-15

“Fraser is the foremost chronicler of the nation's love-hate, codependent relationship with Wall Street.”―Greg Burns, Chicago Tribune

-- Greg Burns ― Chicago Tribune Published On: 2008-10-13

“This interesting history . . . will appeal to anyone interested in financial history or the development of Wall Street. . . . Recommended. All collections.”―Choice

― Choice Published On: 2008-10-01

About the Author

Steve Fraser is an author, an editor, and a historian whose many publications include the award-winning books Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor and Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life. He is senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and cofounder of the American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and the American Prospect.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (April 14, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300151438
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300151435
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,446,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,926 in Economic History (Books)
- #90,975 in United States History (Books)

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4.0 11 ratings

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Bob Burroughs
Enormously Informative
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2008
Verified Purchase
Steve Fraser has a wonderful, crisp style that moves your eye
along the page and onto the next. This is one of those rare
non-fiction books you wish were longer.

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12 people found this helpful

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C. Alfred Santillo
Wall Street
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2009
Verified Purchase
Marvelous piece of writing that is easy to read, panoramic in its perception, and undeniably informative regarding the birth and development of Wall Street, and the idea of "investing" not simply as a capital-generating tool for moguls and tycoons, but for the common man.
Once you finish reading this brief treatise on the Street, and some of the influential individuals who pushed it in various directions, I think any reader will come away with the idea that perhaps, the stock market is similar to playing Russian Roulette with an automatic. If you have deep pockets and can sustain financial losses with a Douglas Fairbanks laugh, and a cavalier toss of long, carefully-styled hair, then by all means waltz down the center line of the Street.
Mr. Fraser's book gives much information, and lots of invitation to dig further into the mechanism of American finance as it existed prior to this somber and much-sobered post-economic-meltdown environment of the approaching new year and beyond.

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2 people found this helpful

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Gordy
Wordy and unique
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2013
Verified Purchase
A different look at the titans who created the modern financial world
Be prepared to be enlightened educated and shocked

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One person found this helpful

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jacob dobbs
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2015
Verified Purchase
very good value, thanks.

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One person found this helpful

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Paul Tognetti
Well researched and elegantly written history of the Street
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2008
There are few institutions in America that evoke such strong emotions among the general public. For over two centuries most Americans have viewed the goings on on Wall Street with a very jaundiced eye....and with very good reason. From the Gilded Age to the dot.com boom of the 1990's the way business was conducted on Wall Street would have an enormous impact of the lives of farmers, factory workers and shopkeepers across this nation. Author Steve Fraser has managed to capture the essence of this love-hate relationship with the Street in his marvelous new book "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace".

For those who know little about the origins of Wall Street Steve Fraser presents a brief history in his Introduction to get us all up to speed. Interestingly enough, this book has only four chapters, each scrutinizing the roles of what Fraser considers to be four iconic Wall Street types including the aristocrat, the confidence man, the hero and the immoralist. In each chapter, Fraser presents vivid portraits of those legendary individuals who for better or for worse have made their mark in the world of high finance. Fraser spotlights such diverse charactors as J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Charles Ponzi and Michael Milken to name but a few. Fraser also discusses at some length how the dot.com boom lured many Americans into the stock market for the very first time and how so many of us were burned by the unscrupulous actions of con men like Michael Milken, corporations like Enron and WorldCom, as well as by a variety of unsavory speculators and day traders.

Overall I found "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace" to be an extremely informative and highly enjoyable read. I enjoy writers with outstanding vocabularies and Steve Fraser can turn a phrase with the best of them. Lots of great information packed into this terrific little book. Highly recommended!

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26 people found this helpful

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Borregaard
Not history
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2009
I thought this book would be a history of Wall Street but it isn't. Sure it touches on some of the "titans" of Wall Street such as Morgan, Vanderbilt, Gould, etc., but only anecdotically to over and over and over again drive home the author's point that these guys were "bad." They may or may not have been but I didn't learn enough from this book to make my own decision.

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6 people found this helpful

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BruceK
Who wrote this book - Steve Fraser or Mark Crispin Miller, description is incorrect
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2022
In two places on this page the author to "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace", this book, is listed as Steve Fraser, and then at the top of the page the "by line" is listed as Mark Crispin Miller?

I cannot find any place to report this, so I'm going to bundle it into a review in hope that someone at Amazon will put this right.

Thank you.

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