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The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

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The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance Paperback – Illustrated, January 13, 2010

by Ron Chernow (Author)

4.4 2,065 ratings

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Published to critical acclaim twenty years ago, and now considered a classic, The House of Morgan is the most ambitious history ever written about American finance. It is a rich, panoramic story of four generations of Morgans and the powerful, secretive firms they spawned, ones that would transform the modern financial world. Tracing the trajectory of J. P. Morgan’s empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the financial crisis of 1987, acclaimed author Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the family’s private saga and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moveda world that included Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Franklin Roosevelt, Nancy Astor, and Winston Churchill. A masterpiece of financial historyit was awarded the 1990 National Book Award for Nonfiction and selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth CenturyThe House of Morgan is a compelling account of a remarkable institution and the men who ran it, and an essential book for understanding the money and power behind the major historical events of the last 150 years.

Print length

848 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Press
Publication date

January 13, 2010
Dimensions

6 x 1.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0802144659
ISBN-13

978-0802144652
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What's it about?
A captivating exploration of the influential Morgan family and their role in shaping the modern financial world, featuring intimate portraits of prominent figures and their elite social circles.
Popular highlight
This empire was shattered by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which erected a high wall between commercial banking (making loans and accepting deposits) and investment banking (issuing stocks and bonds). In 1935, J. P. Morgan and Company chose to remain a commercial bank and spun off Morgan Stanley, an investment house.
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Like the London merchant bankers, the early Jewish bankers on Wall Street had started out as dry-goods merchants: the Lehmans began as Alabama cotton brokers; Goldman, as the owner of a Pennsylvania clothing store, Kuhn and Loeb, as Cincinnati clothiers; and Lazard, in a New Orleans dry-goods business.
737 Kindle readers highlighted this
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Their strategy was to make clients feel accepted into a private club, as if a Morgan account were a membership card to the aristocracy.
463 Kindle readers highlighted this

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner of the National Book Award

As a portrait of finance, politics and the world of avarice and ambition on Wall Street, the book has the movement and tension of an epic novel. It is, quite simply, a tour de force.”The New York Times Book Review

As informative and entertaining a history, especially of the period from 1880 to 1930, as this reviewer has ever read . . . Nowhere has our tenuous financial system been better described than by Chernow.”John Rothchild, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Chernow deftly mixes biography with economics and explicates arcane matters of high finance with sparkling clarity. . . . A fascinating historical journey from Charles Dickens’ London to Tom Wolfe’s New York.”David M. Kennedy, The Atlantic Monthly

An astonishingly detailed and fascinating story of the Morgan banks and the men who have run them. Chernow uses his gift for description to bring out vividly the personalities of his principals.”Don Keown, San Francisco Chronicle

Epic . . . Chernow melds deep insights into the life and times of Morgan bankers over 150 years with the flow of world history and the growth of banking and finance. With rich detail and warmth, he brings to life the defunct species of gentleman banker.”Bill Barnhart, Chicago Tribune

About the Author

RON CHERNOW is the author of six books, including The Warburgs, a history of the German-Jewish Warburg banking family, and the award-winning biographies Alexander Hamilton and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Illustrated edition (January 13, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 848 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802144659
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802144652
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #16,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8 in Banks & Banking (Books)
- #28 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #70 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals

Customer Reviews:
4.4 2,065 ratings

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Ron Chernow

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Ron Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for his first book, The House of Morgan, and his second book, The Warburgs, won the Eccles Prize as the Best Business Book of 1993. His biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan, was a national bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

2,065 global ratings

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ShaggyLa13

Extensive

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024

Verified Purchase

I was never that interested in banking. That being said the historical thread of banking that has run through history as portrayed in this book is quite interesting.

Helpful

Will Szal

Sprawling yet Riveting Financial History

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

I find financial histories riveting. At first glance, I found the mammoth size of this book a bit of a deterrent, but this was not at all the case once I got into it.

"The House of Morgan" is much more than the story of a banking house—it's the story of finance, the United States, and the world, over the past 150 years.

I can't hope to summarize a book of such monumental scope over the course of this review, so instead I'll offer some snapshots.

Did you know that the bankers of yore worked four-hour days and took three months of vacation a year? Instead of the mad rush of 100-hour work weeks and exhaustion-induced suicides commonplace over the past thirty or forty years in finance, banking used to be largely a leisurely and respectable field.

John Pierpont Morgan was actually third in a line of financiers laying the foundation for the J. P. Morgan. The first was British-American banker George Peabody. The second was Pierpont's father, Junius Spencer Morgan. Pierpont was essentially third-generation, so he had a significant head start and a lot of inherited privilege and wealth that made his venture possible! J. P. "Jack" Morgan Jr. was Pierpont's son, and oversaw the pinnacle of Morgan eminence.

J. P. Morgan & Co. was founded in 1971 and died in 1935 with the implementation of Glass-Steagall, which split commercial and "investment" banking. After that, remnants of the Morgan empire remained, but you can't really call them J. P Morgan & Co.

One of the most fascinating stories in the book is the parallel and eventually divergent careers of Tom Lamont (financier to Mussolini and enabler of WWII) and Hjalmar Schacht (German financier, and part of the resistance against Hitler). Basically it came down to the question of is there a point when keeping a friendship easygoing needs to be sidelined to uphold a certain set of ethics or values. Lamont said no when Hjalmar said yes.

Another fascinating fact: pretty much every government defaulted on their debt at some point during the timeline covered in the book; not just "developing" countries like Brazil, but also countries like Japan and Germany. Investors today seem to think of bonds as safe, but in the historical perspective, they don't look that safe...

The book becomes a little jumbled after the split of the bank, as there’s no longer one coherent storyline. Also, there isn’t really any analysis given at the end of the book.

Overall, I found the book fascinating, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the financial history of the United States.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Garry Richard Stein

More than a Morgan History

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2024

Verified Purchase

A wonderful enlightening read. This is more than just a history of the House of Morgan, but rather a history of the dynamic changes in global capital markets. A must read for financial executives!

One person found this helpful

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H. P.

Short History of Banking

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2012

Verified Purchase

The House of Morgan is an stand-out history of modern finance, told as the story of one of America's great banking families. It tells the story of the shift of the epicenter of global finance from London to New York City and should serve as a reminder to we Americans that that epicenter is not fixed and can shift again.

Morgan was a powerful man. During the 1907 Panic he put NYC's bankers in a room and forced them to save the city and its banking system. A decade later it would be the federal reserve, not any banker, with that power. Even during the Great Depression, partners at J.P. Morgan made a million dollars a year. J.P. Morgan himself was shockingly cash poor (much of his wealth was in art) compared to his fellow robber barons, but those robber barons relied on him for capital, the lifeblood of all businesses. The dominance of J.P. Morgan was only broken by Glass-Steagal (this was by no means certain: FDR liked the big banks because of their internationalist bent and his fear of the power conservative small bank presidents had in small town politics).

As someone who worked in banking during a youth mispent, I loved the window Chernow provides into the banking of yesteryear. J.P. Morgan was a conservative place to work, even for a banking house. In the halcyon days of the three-martini lunch, J.P. Morgan partners abstained at lunch. It was considered a career-limiting move to remove your suit jacket before entering the restroom.

The House of Morgan is the first book I would suggest to anyone interest in the history of American finance and one of a few I would suggest for economic history.

As in all of his books, Chernow shows off an impressive vocabulary. He uses the words correctly and fruitfully, but you may benefit from keeping a dictionary handy.

31 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Ono.Matopoeia

Wow - great coverage of important changes in Finance!

Reviewed in Canada on May 25, 2024

Verified Purchase

The author presented a comprehensive coverage of the history of the Morgan operations as well changes to the Finance industry.
It was fascinating to view the changes in the services rendered since the early 1800s.
In the first 100 years of operations there were little changes made. The coverage of this section was somewhat "dry".

Academic research introduced in the 1900s, together with new technologies, resulted in major changes to operating procedures. The new Mantra was based on present value calculations. However, some Finance Providers did not follow this Mantra.
A fascinating read.

Uriel

Excellent part of finance history.

Reviewed in Mexico on May 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

Hell of a book, each paragraph tells you a part of the history of the financial system as a whole and some part of the private lives of these huge bankers. Is not actually a hard read if you are into the subject, and I find most of the book really entertaining.

marcos Henrique

Financeiro

Reviewed in Brazil on June 30, 2019

Verified Purchase

The best player in the world, a person ahead of his time