Building the Empire State
Political Economy in the Early Republic
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Narrated by:
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Douglas R. Pratt
About this listen
Building the Empire State examines the origins of American capitalism by tracing how and why business corporations were first introduced into the economy of the early republic. Brian Phillips Murphy follows the collaborations between political leaders and a group of unelected political entrepreneurs, including Robert R. Livingston and Alexander Hamilton, who persuaded legislative powers to grant monopolies corporate status in order to finance and manage civic institutions. Murphy shows how American capitalism grew out of the convergence of political and economic interests, wherein political culture was shaped by business strategies and institutions as much as the reverse.
Focusing on the state of New York, a onetime mercantile colony that became home to the first American banks, utilities, canals, and transportation infrastructure projects, Building the Empire State surveys the changing institutional ecology during the first five decades following the American Revolution. By playing a central role in the creation and regulation of institutions that facilitated private commercial transactions, New York State's political officials created formal and informal precedents for the political economy throughout the northeastern United States and toward the expanding westward frontier. The political, economic, and legal consequences organizing the marketplace in this way continue to be felt in the vast influence and privileged position held by corporations in the present day.
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A tour de force of historical reportage, America’s Bank illuminates the tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that spurred the unlikely birth of America’s modern central bank, the Federal Reserve. Today, the Fed is the bedrock of the financial landscape, yet the fight to create it was so protracted and divisive that it seems a small miracle that it was ever established. For nearly a century, America, alone among developed nations, refused to consider any central or organizing agency in its financial system.
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Important and Intriguing
- By Jean on 11-02-15
By: Roger Lowenstein
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Fantasy Island
- Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico
- By: Ed Morales
- Narrated by: Sean Duffy
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government's prioritization of outside financial interests.
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Gringo Narrattion
- By shakira julia on 02-08-21
By: Ed Morales
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The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve
- By: Peter Conti-Brown
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The independence of the Federal Reserve is considered a cornerstone of its identity, crucial for keeping monetary policy decisions free of electoral politics. But do we really understand what is meant by "Federal Reserve independence"? Using scores of examples from the Fed's rich history, The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve shows that much common wisdom about the nation's central bank is inaccurate.
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Meandering, gossipy, a bit pop-journalistic
- By Philo on 10-03-16
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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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Railroaded
- The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
- By: Richard White
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The transcontinental railroads of the late 19th century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the US economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life.
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Correcting the Myth of the Transcontinentals
- By Keith on 06-23-18
By: Richard White
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The Color of Money
- Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap
- By: Mehrsa Baradaran
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the black community owned less than one percent of the United States' total wealth. More than 150 years later, that number has barely budged. The Color of Money pursues the persistence of this racial wealth gap by focusing on the generators of wealth in the black community: black banks. The catch-22 of black banking is that the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty caused by discrimination and segregation inevitably became victims of that same poverty.
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Both a Bridge and a Battle Cry
- By Darwin8u on 09-26-17
By: Mehrsa Baradaran
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The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
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Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
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The Deep State
- The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government
- By: Mike Lofgren
- Narrated by: Brian O'Neill
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks. Welcome to Mike Lofgren's Washington, DC - a This Town where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making.
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Almost good, but profoundly misunderstands economics and very biased towards Democrats
- By Nina Prevot on 04-08-16
By: Mike Lofgren
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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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American Character
- A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
- By: Colin Woodard
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The struggle between individualism and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of every major disagreement in our history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the run-up to the Civil War to the fights surrounding the agenda of the Progressives, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party.
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Biased Misrepresentation
- By Jay Ehret on 06-24-16
By: Colin Woodard
What listeners say about Building the Empire State
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jean
- 03-17-16
Compelling
In this book Murphy examines the origins of American capitalism by tracing how and why business corporations were first introduced into the economy of the early republic. Murphy reveals how Alexander Hamilton and Robert R. Livingston and others led collaboration between political leaders and a group of entrepreneurs and persuaded legislative powers to grant monopoly corporate states in order to finance and manage civic institutions.
New York became home to the first American banks, utilities, canals and transpiration infrastructure projects. Murphy chronicles the first fifty years after the American Revolution following the Manhattan Company, the steam boat monopoly, the Erie Canal, the New York and Erie Railroad. I was interested in learning about Robert Fulton and his steamboat and Livingston who provided the money. I also found the section about why various types of banks were created and the pros and cons of each along with how they evolved into the banks we have today.
The book is well written and meticulously researched. Murphy was a Jefferson Scholar at Monticello and is a professor at Baruch College. I enjoyed learning about the building of New York by combining private and public companies to do the work of building and running various infrastructure projects. I remember reading later on about Belmont and his water company. Douglas R. Pratt does a good job narrating the book.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Philo
- 04-02-16
Block by block, USA's political economy is built
Hearing this book, all my prior readings about New York, Alexander Hamilton, early USA banking, and early USA political and legal history, crystallized together and made sense, for the first time. Perhaps each of my earlier readings were too topic-confined and pigeonholed, where this book spans them all fluidly and connects the dots. Here is a clear, careful explanation of the successful constructing of a government, a banking system, and a society and economy encompassing many mutually suspicious factions. It is a lucid tale of the past and a guide for the future. To all the noisy distortions and kicked-up dust in popular political lunacy of our day, this story's telling serves as a wonderful tonic. USA's vitality and success has been a product of the blending of all these potentially conflicting forces, and it wasn't an accident. Here, plain as day, carefully told, is the story of how it was done, by who with who, deal by deal, brick by brick. All those spitting venom at various factions in society can benefit from seeing a harmonizing between them, done right.
This stands as my single favorite USA history book, ever.
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