Bagehot
The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Cowley
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By:
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James Grant
About this listen
During the upheavals of 2007-9, the chairman of the Federal Reserve had the name of a Victorian icon on the tip of his tongue: Walter Bagehot. Banker, man of letters, inventor of the Treasury bill, and author of Lombard Street, the still-canonical guide to stopping a run on the banks, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that - decades later - inspired the radical responses to the world's worst financial crises.
Born in the small market town of Langport, just after the Panic of 1825 swept across England, Bagehot followed in his father's footsteps and took a position at the local family bank - but his influence on financial matters would soon spread far beyond the county of Somerset. Persuasive and precocious, he came to hold sway in political circles, making high-profile friends, including William Gladstone - and enemies, such as Lord Overstone and Benjamin Disraeli. As a prolific essayist on wide-ranging topics, Bagehot won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson, and delighted in paradox. He was also a misogynist, and while he opposed slavery, he misjudged Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. As editor of the Economist, he offered astute commentary on the financial issues of his day, and his name lives on in an eponymous weekly column. He has been called "the Greatest Victorian."
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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Inside Money
- Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power
- By: Zachary Karabell
- Narrated by: Zachary Karabell
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Inside Money, acclaimed historian, commentator, and former financial executive Zachary Karabell offers the first full and frank look inside this institution against the backdrop of American history. Blessed with complete access to the company's archives, as well as a thrilling understanding of the larger forces at play, Karabell has created an X-ray of American power - financial, political, cultural - as it has evolved from the early 1800s to the present.
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Brilliant, well researched & highly insightful
- By Mongezi on 02-11-22
By: Zachary Karabell
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Money for Nothing
- The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich
- By: Thomas Levenson
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of the Scientific Revolution, when new theories promised to explain the affairs of the universe, Britain was broke, facing a mountain of debt accumulated in war after war it could not afford. But that same Scientific Revolution - the kind of thinking that helped Isaac Newton solve the mysteries of the cosmos - would soon lead clever, if not always scrupulous, men to try to figure a way out of Britain’s financial troubles.
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Financial innovation's first song of the siren.
- By Michael Barnett on 09-06-20
By: Thomas Levenson
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The House of Morgan
- An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.
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The construction of the House of Morgan
- By Darwin8u on 10-22-18
By: Ron Chernow
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The House of Rothschild, Volume 1
- Money's Prophets: 1798-1848
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Alexander Adams
- Length: 28 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe.
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Great research, poor narrative
- By Amaze on 04-30-19
By: Niall Ferguson
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On Corruption in America
- And What Is at Stake
- By: Sarah Chayes
- Narrated by: Sarah Chayes
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders - from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution - undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members.
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Profoundly ambitious and genuine yet...
- By Jerry A. Boriskin on 08-16-20
By: Sarah Chayes
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Yellen
- The Trailblazing Economist Who Navigated an Era of Upheaval
- By: Jon Hilsenrath
- Narrated by: Jon Hilsenrath, Seth Podowitz
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An engrossing and deeply human chronicle of the past fifty years of American economic and social upheaval, viewed through the consequential life of the most powerful woman in American economic history, Janet Yellen, and her unconventional partnership in marriage and work with Nobel Laureate George Akerlof.
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Must read
- By Ali on 03-26-24
By: Jon Hilsenrath
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The New Deal
- A Modern History
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.
In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.
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Another Excellent New Deal History
- By R.S. on 12-19-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
- By: Andrew Carnegie
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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His good friend Mark Twain dubbed him "St. Andrew." British Prime Minister William Gladstone called him an "example" for the wealthy. Such terms seldom apply to multimillionaires. But Andrew Carnegie was no run-of-the-mill steel magnate. At age 13 and full of dreams, he sailed from his native Dunfermline, Scotland, to America. Here, in one volume, are two impressive works by Andrew Carnegie himself: his autobiography and The Gospel of Wealth, a groundbreaking manifesto on the duty of the wealthy to give back to society all of their fortunes.
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Top 5 Books
- By Chelle Grunberg on 12-31-18
By: Andrew Carnegie
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Coolidge: An American Enigma
- By: Robert Sobel
- Narrated by: Charles Bice
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves into the record to show how Coolidge cut taxes four times, had a budget surplus every year in office, and cut the national debt by a third in a period of unprecedented economic growth.
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A Book Exciting As It's Subject!!!
- By Ted on 08-28-12
By: Robert Sobel
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The Hellhound of Wall Street
- How Ferdinand Pecora's Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance
- By: Michael Perino
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Hellhound of Wall Street, Michael Perino recounts in riveting detail the 1933 hearings that put Wall Street on trial for the Great Crash. Never before in American history had so many financial titans been called to account before the public, and they had come within a few weeks of emerging unscathed. By the time Ferdinand Pecora, a Sicilian immigrant and former New York prosecutor, took over as chief counsel, the investigation had dragged on ineffectively for nearly a year and was universally written off as dead....
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Great Story
- By Lynn on 03-22-11
By: Michael Perino
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The Ascent of Money
- A Financial History of the World
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
What listeners say about Bagehot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Philo
- 09-14-19
Near perfect, but not for everyone
Many have heard of Bagehot, a few of the big events of his times, but here is a deeper look. It is is no dry story, but it will be for some.
Patient, attentive reading, like patient, attentive handling of investment capital, reaches dimensions and payoffs not otherwise found. This is an odd book, being a bio mashed up with a finance book. There is a bit of wandering but always in service of enlightenment. Stretches of personal tales and then finance, even if transitioning pretty seamlessly, can lend an odd tempo. But for me, the investment pays. Bagehot's life, like any rich life, is a sort of hologram where everything interlaces. This is far more entertaining than a textbook droning to deliver the same content: a spoonful of sugar, as they say. But not really all that sugary, more restrained, Victorian. Once I get the idiom, it is irresistible, like the sheathed sexuality of earlier 20th century movie humor. The literacy and courtesy in these people's personal letters are something to behold -- a lost art. This book hits spot on many existing passions of mine, which are surely not everybody's. I never realized just how very English my (Southern California middle class Episcopal) family upbringing was. I love to hear the Mother Tongue, written and read with such felicity. Like any good art, there are many layers to be found by many listeners. This is bright crackling English prose, rare in business history. The author imbibed the whole scene, and breathes it out with surpassing grace. My apologies to those who are unfit for this book, and will find it snobby and indecipherable. Twits have plenty of their twitterverse already. Bagehot surely could be wordy -- extremely -- and as depicted here was plenty human and capable of arrogance and error (but usually so sheathed! This too is a Victorian art.).
About 6 1/2 to 7 hours in comes, for me, the biggest payoff: in the wake of the collapse of the Overend Gurney firm, and the ensuing panic, comes a great debate about the role of a national, central bank. I have never witnessed so lucid a description of banking and central banking and all stakeholders, as here, most particularly in a sharp exchange among England's brightest. Bagehot starts into this in an all-too-human way, as the journalist hedging and straddling the matter, but finally brings things brilliantly into focus. The rest is finance history, as Bagehot's quotes came off the lips of the west's leaders post-2008. We can argue about the results post-2008, but nowhere will you find such a splendid explanation of what is, deep down, driving everybody, and at stake for everybody, in the configuration of a banking system, and its backstops. The original speakers and writers were brilliant, and the author does the whole matter (and the avid listener) great justice.
This balanced depiction of the man and his fumblings is to the author's credit; no phony one-dimensional heroes inhabit this book. Nineteenth century finance is suddenly illuminated for me, timelessly, so it lights up plenty happening now. More audibles from Grant, please!
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2 people found this helpful
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- tin
- 04-09-23
Nice book
A nice book about a guy I never heard of. I got the book be I like the author.
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- A. Visserman
- 11-24-23
Irritating performance
The story is fine but the reading is at annoying tempo with stresses always on the penultimate syllable. This spoilt the experience.
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- Bradley Perrett
- 12-31-20
Bad reading
The book is badly degraded by the reading. In sentence after sentence, the reader emphasizes the wrong words, making comprehension difficult. It is evident that the reader approached the job as though he were a machine – not understand the content, but just reading it, throwing in emphasis almost randomly because every sentence needs emphasis somewhere.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-31-19
History does not rhyme!
There was a major shift in economic theory and cultural theories going on at the same time. This book was an excellent source of history to converge small shifts in principles that lead to greater destruction. To say history rhymes would be to say there are differences in the nature of greed and gluttony.
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- Scott
- 08-25-19
James Grant at his best
I have been a long-time reader of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, and have always found his arguments compelling, even when I disagree with him.
This biography is thoughtful, evenhanded, and witty take on Walter Bagehot (1826–1877), a 19th-century British banker, editor-in-chief of the Economist, and a skilled economic thinker.
Grant assionately admires Bagehot as a “virtuoso writer on money and banking” whose output was “eclectic, fearless, aphoristic, prolific” and whose ideas remain respected today.
At the same time, Grant underscores Bagehot's flaws (hauteur, forgetful of mistakes and an unsucessful politician). Bagehot was born into a provincial banking dynasty; he went into one of the family businesses, the regional bank Stuckey’s.
It is a measure of Grant as a writter that Bagehot comes off charismatic as he is reputed to have been in life.
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- Stephen E Jacobs
- 02-17-20
A Disappointment
I've been a subscriber to The Economist for years, so when I learned of a book about the person so revered as an early editor, I was curious.
Whet I heard was a book about an influential man in 19th century Britain but nowhere did I learn why he'd been called the "Greatest Vicotian" in the title.
The book was more an analysis of the financial system in Bagehot's time than why he was so 'special.'
It wasn't a bad book and it keeped me listening to the end, but it didn't impart any sense of the magic of this man's views that is intimated by The Economist.
The most useful thing I learned in the whole book was how 'Bagehot' is pronounced.
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1 person found this helpful
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- FoxMan
- 08-30-19
I wanted to like it
The British accent reading was awful. The writing was not much better. I expected to like it because I like his Barron's writing. This wasn't good.
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4 people found this helpful