
The Death of the Banker
The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor
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Narrated by:
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Michael Kramer
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By:
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Ron Chernow
About this listen
With the same breadth of vision and narrative élan he brought to his monumental biographies of the great financiers, Ron Chernow examines the forces that made dynasties like the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds the financial arbiters of the early 20th century and then rendered them virtually obsolete by the century's end. As he traces the shifting balance of power among investors, borrowers, and bankers, Chernow evokes both the grand theater of capital and the personal dramas of its most fascinating protagonists. Here is Siegmund Warburg, who dropped a client in the heat of a takeover deal because the man wore monogrammed shirt cuffs, as well as the imperious J. P. Morgan, who, when faced with a federal antitrust suit, admonished Theodore Roosevelt to "send your man to my man and they can fix it up". And here are the men who usurped their power, from the go-getters of the 1920s to the masters of the universe of the 1980s. Glittering with perception and anecdote, The Death of the Banker is at once a panorama of 20th-century finance and a guide to the new era of giant mutual funds on Wall Street.
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Compelling story of an American Icon
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-18
By: Ron Chernow
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Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 41 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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A sad day when my book was done!
- By ButterLegume on 12-13-10
By: Ron Chernow
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
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Abridged history
- By Nick on 02-19-07
By: Ron Chernow
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Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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Great Book, Great Reader
- By DanD on 07-10-11
By: Ron Chernow
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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Mellon
- An American Life
- By: David Cannadine
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 35 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each. Following a boyhood in 19th-century Pittsburgh, during which he learned from his Scotch-Irish immigrant father the lessons of self-sufficiency and wealth accumulation, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to become one of America's greatest financiers.
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Fascinating and Detailed Biography
- By Nostromo on 04-17-07
By: David Cannadine
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White Shoe
- How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business and the American Century
- By: John Oller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The fascinating true story of how a group of visionary attorneys helped make American business synonymous with big business and Wall Street the center of the financial world.
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Adds sharp, telling detail to big biz-law tales
- By Philo on 03-21-19
By: John Oller
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 35 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.
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An Outstanding & Riveting Book!
- By Kevin on 03-04-05
By: Ron Chernow
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Andrew Carnegie
- By: David Nasaw
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 32 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.
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Andrew Carnegie
- By Peggie on 10-01-07
By: David Nasaw
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The People's Tycoon
- Henry Ford and the American Century
- By: Steven Watts
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 29 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford's outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism.
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50% Longer than it needed to be.
- By Chris on 04-06-13
By: Steven Watts
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Devil Take the Hindmost
- A History of Financial Speculation
- By: Edward Chancellor
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Devil Take the Hindmost is a lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to the present day. Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world.
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Well-picked scenes span tulips up to 20 years ago
- By Philo on 03-07-19
A bit out of date
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Note copyright/printing date
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Excellent
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I get the broad outlines of Chernow's thesis, and the handy bar graph he creates to illustrate it is so simple, even I can imagine it without the help of a picture on a page. But Chernow's familiarity with financial concepts leaves us (ok, me) panting to catch up. Without a helpful explanation--like those provided in his magnificent Hamilton bio--I can't tell a "securities market" from a "commercial paper market". Given time, I can noodle out what he means by "the financial allocation function", but by then, the story has moved on and I need to (once again) rewind.
Still, I get the overall concept: industries once tethered to their bankers have now been liberated by (and made beholden to) small investors like you and me. Chernow makes it clear that, like all triumphs, that of the small investor has its downsides, too. The obliteration, for example, of true "relationship banking", when men who knew and trusted each other whispered advice in paneled libraries. Yes, you'd have to be of a certain financial standing to enjoy that level of attention. But it's better than the faux-intimacy banks (along with most other brands) foist on us wholesale nowadays.
After the long introductory essay, "Tycoons", comes as a welcome change. Here Chernow presents two brief studies of J. Pierpont Morgan and the Warburg dynasty. As with philosophical and political ideas, I have a much easier time grasping financial principles if I can see them acted out in history. So, with all my shortcomings as an audience, I still managed to learn something.
Michael Kramer does a fine job with all of it. Like all good narrators, he sounds interested in what he's reading and wants to make it interesting for us. Alas, his efforts behind the mic are somewhat marred by a sibilance that the "Small Speakers" setting on my iPod (yes, I still use an iPod) almost succeeded in banishing.
Big Picture? Got it. Details? Not So Much.
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Different Than my Usual
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Recommended for all who want an understanding of how our current financial systems came to be.
Overarching Overview of Banking Biographies
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Interesting but dated
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Now, about the aged nature of the book (20 years old now): it shows its age. But it bears this gracefully, handing me tools to understand the present.
Deep insights, wide comprehension, lively pace
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Think you'll be glad when a book of this nature is over? Think again! Pressing "Play" and already counting your lucky stars that Michael Kramer's brilliant, wry voice gets this history over with in a paltry 4 hrs and 37 mins? You are, I suspect, in for a very welcome rude awakening... you are about to discover that you are an unapologetically passionate student of the history of bankers (and banking), and to those who doubt the sincerity of your conversion, you will wish for the voice of Kramer as you utter your full defense: "You must read Chernow's The Death of the Banker... then we can talk."
AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY
Amazed: Banking History is Fascinating and Amusing
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Banking History made fun
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