White Shoe
How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business and the American Century
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Graybill
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By:
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John Oller
About this listen
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.
“Entertaining.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“Fast-paced history.” (Library Journal)
“Insightful and revealing."(Kirkus)
“Captivating.” (BookPage)
The legal profession once operated on a smaller scale - folksy lawyers arguing for fairness and justice before a judge and jury. But by the year 1900, a new type of lawyer was born, one who understood business as well as the law. Working hand in glove with their clients, over the next two decades, these New York City “white shoe” lawyers devised and implemented legal strategies that would drive the business world throughout the 20th century. These lawyers were architects of the monopolistic new corporations so despised by many and acted as guardians who helped the kings of industry fend off government overreaching. Yet they also quietly steered their robber-baron clients away from a “public be damned” attitude toward more enlightened corporate behavior during a period of progressive, turbulent change in America.
Author John Oller, himself a former Wall Street lawyer, gives us a richly written glimpse of turn-of-the-century New York, from the grandeur of private mansions and elegant hotels and the city’s early skyscrapers and transportation systems, to the depths of its deplorable tenement housing conditions. Some of the biggest names of the era are featured, including business titans J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, lawyer-statesmen Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes, and presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.
Among the colorful, high-powered lawyers vividly portrayed, White Shoe focuses on three: Paul Cravath, who guided his client George Westinghouse in his war against Thomas Edison and launched a new model of law-firm management - the “Cravath system”; Frank Stetson, the “attorney general” for financier J. P. Morgan who fiercely defended against government lawsuits to break up Morgan’s business empires; and William Nelson Cromwell, the lawyer “who taught the robber barons how to rob” and was best known for his instrumental role in creating the Panama Canal.
In White Shoe, the story of this small but influential band of Wall Street lawyers who created big business is fully told for the first time.
©2019 John Oller (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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“A valuable addition to the literature on America’s transformation during the Gilded Age.” (Publishers Weekly)
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"This fast-paced history of the period from the white shoe perspective will be both entertaining and enlightening for most readers." (Library Journal)
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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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America's Bank
- The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Impeached
- The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy
- By: David O. Stewart
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1868 Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of a second civil war. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, distraught that former rebels threatened to regain control of Southern state governments, and disgusted by Johnson's brawling political style, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment - whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.
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Highly recommended
- By Eric on 12-12-19
By: David O. Stewart
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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The Teapot Dome Scandal
- How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House
- By: Laton McCartney
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s was all about oil - hundreds of millions of dollars� worth of petroleum. When the scandal finally broke, the consequences were tremendous. President Harding's legacy was forever tarnished, while �Oil Cabinet� member Albert Fall was forced to resign and was imprisoned for a year. Others implicated in the affair suffered prison terms, commitment to mental hospitals, suicide, and even murder.
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Harding's return to normalcy: corruption
- By Paul on 03-05-08
By: Laton McCartney
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Nothing to Fear
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America
- By: Adam Cohen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.
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Important contribution
- By R.S. on 03-05-09
By: Adam Cohen
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Star-Spangled Men
- America's Ten Worst Presidents
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Picking America's best presidents is easy. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt usually lead the list. But choosing the nation's worst presidents requires more thought. In Star-Spangled Men, respected presidential biographer Nathan Miller puts on display those leaders who were abject failures as chief executive. With pointed humor and a deft hand, he presents a rogues' gallery of the men who dropped the presidential ball, and sometimes their pants as well.
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Entertaining and factual
- By Sean on 10-25-14
By: Nathan Miller
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American Heritage History of the Presidents
- By: Michael R. Beschloss
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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From George Washington's reluctant oath-taking through George W. Bush's leadership challenges after September 11, 2001, we view ambitious and fallible men through the new lens of the 21st century. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And what do we know now that we could not have known at the time?
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Good but Far from Great
- By Michael on 07-11-20
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The Supreme Court
- By: William H. Rehnquist
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Chief Justice Rehnquist's engaging writing illuminates both the high and low points in the Court's history, from Chief Justice Marshall's dominance of the Court during the early 19th century through the landmark decisions of the Warren Court. Citing cases such as the Dred Scott decision and Roosevelt's Court-packing plan, Rehnquist makes clear that the Court does not operate in a vacuum, that the justices are unavoidably influenced by their surroundings, and that their decisions have real and lasting impacts on our society.
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Absorbing
- By Jean on 01-28-18
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The Fall of the House of FIFA
- The Multimillion-Dollar Corruption at the Heart of Global Soccer
- By: David Conn
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.
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quite good
- By kevin m on 12-14-17
By: David Conn
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Without Precedent
- Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times
- By: Joel Richard Paul
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No member of America's founding generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next 40 years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history—he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts.
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Scholarly and Accessible
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-01-18
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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The Case for Impeachment
- By: Allan J. Lichtman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the ranges and limitations of presidential authority? What are the standards of truthfulness that a president must uphold? What will it take to impeach Donald J. Trump? Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted 30 years of presidential outcomes, answers these questions, and more, in The Case for Impeachment - a deeply convincing argument for impeaching the 45th president of the United States.
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Every American should read this!
- By Daniel Ballard on 04-24-17
What listeners say about White Shoe
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Victor
- 10-14-19
Highly recommended for those in legal profession
This book is of particular interest to those in the legal profession, including both attorneys and non-attorney staff members. Employees of major law firms will likely hear their employer's name and other familiar firms’ names more than once.
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- Brian
- 04-30-19
Great book
I guess I may be a bit biased since I am a lawyer. This book was is very interesting! I only knew about Paul Cravath from the great fiction novel, The Last Days of Night. I did know a bit about the robber barons, but not their lawyers. This book, however, is more about the Guilded Age than simply about the lawyers. Give it a try!!
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- Philo
- 03-21-19
Adds sharp, telling detail to big biz-law tales
I had heard many of the big, basic stories from authors such as Ron Chernow (in the J.P. Morgan bio and Death of the Banker). These are usually business-titan-centric. So, knowing the basic contours of the history helps to really draw out the value of this piece. This story stays close to the known figures but fills out the map of all sorts of vital personalities who came from the side of strategy and getting things done, creating as they went. Sometimes this involved creating new legal structures, as William Nelson Cromwell's innovations (throwing together bankruptcy structures through constellations of deals across state lines before the law provided them, and inaugurating the holding company to get around political attacks on the infamous trusts, and more!). Here we see genius strategists, with financiers' funds behind them, stretching their thinking and tools across jurisdictions in fascinating ways.
A crucial moment in U.S. history and the dawning American century is lit here from a different, very revealing angle. J.P. Morgan is widely known as a proto-Fed, privately coordinating rescues of the banking system and the Treasury at crucial moments. Similarly, here, in the Panama Canal affair, Cromwell acts as a sort of private (but publicly connected) proto-CIA (that's me editorializing, not the author), at turns visible and invisible, shepherding a national project through the framing-up, lobbying Congress, and then apparently coordinating the revolution that carved a separate Panana out of Colombia. Finally with a few deft (and sometimes tricky) moves he saw that the desired treaties were signed and sealed, giving the U.S. effective sovereignty over the Canal Zone, and leaving many Panamanian revolutionary patriots in the lurch. In this we see a master artist at work in the Macchiavellian lawyer sense, using selective invisibility to move people and various levers all over the map. Nobody could see the whole picture and strategy except perhaps Cromwell himself. This is a master-class in these arts. Watch too as Cromwell switches clients (as well as alliances) across that story -- it is quite a tightrope walk. My CIA thought makes sense as later Sullivan and Cromwell managing partner John Foster Dulles' brother Allen, also a partner, became director of the CIA. These are big pillars of the lofty heights of power in the American Century that was to follow.
Then at moments we are back to nuts and bolts of the design of law firms. This book has an interesting reach, especially to a lawyer. But the real excellence of the book shows in its seamless movement from personalities to big ideas to events. Here is a more lucid explanation of he rise,out of the Gilded Age, of the Progressive era, in all its components such as antitrust debates and law, than I have seen anywhere. The legal side provides an amazing prism through which to comprehend topics as pertinent now as ever then. The author sometimes draws parallels between the business titans of then and the tech firms now, and the sometimes puzzling actions of the government. One can trace thinkers such as Louis Brandeis (corporate lawyer and later Supreme Court Justice) right down to the Elizabeth Warren of today. I am amazed how much these issues were fleshed out at the dawn of the 20th century.
This is a unique and favorite addition to my business-finance-law bookshelf. I was a bit hesitant at first because a few books of this type have been rather stale and starchy. But once this one gets going, it is consistently pleasing and illuminating. My knowledge of American history is appreciably improved.
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3 people found this helpful