The Founding Fortunes Audiobook By Tom Shachtman cover art

The Founding Fortunes

How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Founding Fortunes

By: Tom Shachtman
Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.24

Buy for $20.24

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

In The Founding Fortunes, historian Tom Shachtman reveals the ways in which a dozen notable revolutionaries deeply affected the finances and birth of the new country while making and losing their fortunes.

While history teaches that successful revolutions depend on participation by the common man, the establishment of a stable and independent United States first required wealthy colonials uniting to disrupt the very system that had enriched them, and then funding a very long war. While some fortunes were made during the war at the expense of the poor, many of the wealthy embraced the goal of obtaining for their poorer countrymen an unprecedented equality of opportunity, along with independence.

In addition to nuanced views of the well-known wealthy such as Robert Morris and John Hancock, and of the less wealthy but influential Alexander Hamilton, The Founding Fortunes offers insight into the contributions of those often overlooked by popular history: Henry Laurens, the plantation owner who replaced Hancock as President of Congress; pioneering businessmen William Bingham, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Stephen Girard; privateer magnate Elias Hasket Derby; and Hamilton’s successors at Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and Albert Gallatin. The Founders dealt with tariffs, taxes on the wealthy, the national debt, regional disparities, the census as it affected finances, and how much of what America needs should be manufactured at home in ways that remain startlingly relevant.

Revelatory and insightful, The Founding Fortunes provides a riveting history of economic patriotism that still resonates today.

©2020 Tom Shachtman (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
Americas Economic History Economics Revolution & Founding United States Taxation War Capitalism War of 1812 Military United Kingdom Socialism Bank War
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
Why would rich folks, presumably relatively well-advantaged and well-connected with England, roll the dice on rebellion? Why would less-advantaged folks throw in with them? Who won and lost in the processes that followed? This focus has a lot to tell us. I think it is meaningful now as we contemplate our current society's inequality and the management approaches we might bring to that. Whatever finance is from time to time, it is a form of social and political engineering and order. The financial side of things is to me, always central.

Fills a vital gap

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.