Book REview
Title: Alexander Hamilton
Author: Ron Chernow
Year of Publication: 2004
When have 730 pages ever flown by so quickly? Hamilton is
the patron saint of American enterprise, and here Chernow
has given him the definitive biography. It tells enough of the
times so that the life is related all the more finely. The writing
is brisk and accessible, but is rich in vocabulary. Chernow is
clearly an admirer of Hamilton, but the presentation is fair
and balanced, not glossing over any of the man’s misjudgments. Other biographers have tended to emphasize Hamilton’s war record — he led the charge at Yorktown — and on
the battles over assumption. Chernow honors those but gives full glory to Hamilton’s
role as President Washington’s most trusted advisor, and also as a key enabler of the
Constitution—far beyond just his role in writing the Federalist Papers. (See full review in
Financial History, issue 86, Fall 2004.)
Title: Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
Author: John C. Bogle
Year of Publication: 2008
Like Theodore Roosevelt, John Bogle is both a wealthy man, and
a harsh critic of the malefactors of great wealth (as TR called
them). For the founder of the multi-squillion-dollar Vanguard
Funds, Bogle decries the “counting culture” in America. He
delights in calling earnings-per-share, slavishly followed as The
Number, as essentially fictitious. Bogle talks about character,
and societal issues and outrage. Bogle lays bare the insatiable
avarice that drives financial operators to ever-greater levels of
cost and complexity. Not the kind of thing that Captains of Industry usually bother with.
Yet no less a stalwart than Barron’s praised Enough, saying it it was “a rabble-rousing,
world-changing work like Common Sense and The Communist Manifesto.”
Title: The Intelligent Investor
Author: Benjamin Graham
Year of Publication: 1949
Before there was Buffett, there was Graham. First published
in 1949, the Sage of Omaha read it the following year when he
was 19 and has since called it “by far the best book on investing
ever written.” The revised edition, updated and featuring commentary from Jason Zweig, member of this magazine’s editorial board, is indeed enhanced with contemporary examples
and perspectives. Still, it is the timeless simplicity, the elemental nature of value investing, that is the bedrock of Graham. In
sharp contrast to the popular guides for “dummies” and “idiots” today, Graham treats his readers with respect. Chapters
16, “Four Extremely Instructive Case Histories,” and 17, “A Comparison of Eight Pairs of
Companies,” could easily be read just for fun. It might also be noted that with more than
a million copies in print, this durable and modest effort has in all likelihood outsold all
the other 99 books on the list combined.
78 Financial History | Spring/Summer 2011 | www.MoAF.org
Lewis, Michael
The Big Short, 2010
Lewis, Michael
Liar’s Poker, 1989
Lewis, Reginald; Walker,
Blair and Price, Hugh
Why Should White Guys
Have All the Fun?, 1994
Little, Jeffery and Rhodes, Lucien
Understanding Wall Street, 1991
Livingston, J.A.
The American Stockholder, 1958
Lowenstein, Roger
When Genius Failed, 2000
Mackay, Charles
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and
the Madness of Crowds, 1841
Maybury, Richard
What Ever Happened to Penny Candy?
(5th Ed), 2004
Mayer, Martin
The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery, 1990
Mayer, Martin
The Bankers, 1974
McDonald, Lawrence G.
A Colossal Failure of
Common Sense, 2009
McElvaine, Robert S.
The Gret Depression, 1984
McGee, Suzanne
Chasing Goldman Sachs, 2010
McLean, Bethany and Elkind, Peter
The Smartest Guys in The Room, 2004
Medbery, James Knowles
Men and Mysteries of Wall Street, 1870
Moody, John
The Art of Wise Investing, 1904
Niall, Ferguson
High Financier, 2010
Partnoy, Frank
The Match King, 2009
Prestbo, John
Markets Measure, 1999
Rizek, Martin and Medvecky, Barbara; Joanne
The Financial District’s
Lost Neighborhood, 2004
Rogoff, Kenneth and Reinhart, Carmen
This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries
of Financial Folly, 2009
Schwed, Jr., Fred
Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?, 1940
Shaw, Bernard
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide
to Socialism and Capitalism, 1928
Shiller, Robert
The New Financial Order, 2003